


The Deep End

by Yessica



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: A surprising amount of fluff, Angst, Autistic Papyrus, ED!Papyrus, Eating Disorders, F/F, Happy Ending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Just a lot of bad stuff, Mental Institutions, Non-Binary Frisk, Papyrus-centric, Past Child Abuse, Post-Pacifist, not explicitily shown but it there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yessica/pseuds/Yessica
Summary: There must have been a mistake. He doesn’t belong here. Life is great. Monsters are free, the surface is wonderful and things couldn’t be better. So the fact that Papyrus still wants to die, isn’t really a problem, is it?





	1. Chapter 1

The halls aren't white, they're gray. A disconcerting color, much like the dust of monsters. That's what it reminds Papyrus of at least.

"And that is why, instead of using the word patient, we prefer 'client'." The woman explains patiently, feet echoing against tiled floors and Papyrus nods.

"If I'm not sick." He says. "Does that mean I can't be cured?"

Sans shoves an elbow into his side while the woman blinks, thin smile plastered on her face. She doesn't answer, just exchanges a mildly concerned look with his brother and Papyrus remembers he's a loony now.

His opinions have no agency anymore.

They continue walking down hallways of gray and mint green, a horrible color combination as far as interior design goes and Papyrus wonders if it is meant to be soothing. So far, it has mostly served to make him nauseous.

"And this is where we do our solitary confinement." The woman says as they arrive at a large, unusually robust door.

"Do you have to use it often?" Sans asks for no particular reason other than to seem interested and Papyrus has to try his best not to throttle him.

She tucks some strands of chestnut colored hair behind her ear as she frowns, trying to come up with an appropriate answer. Her opinion of monsterkind must be fairly negative, right about now.

"Still more than we would like." She decides, nodding at herself as if proud of her ambiguous answer. Sans shrugs at him behind her turned back and Papyrus rolls his eyes in response.

Two hallways down is another, more modest door. The woman opens it with some grandeur, as if a price is waiting behind it. Presumable, that price would be his recovered mental health.

Instead, it's just a room.

"This is where you'll be staying. Your roommate isn't here right now, they won't be back until Sunday night. Should give you some time to adjust."

Papyrus walks into the room slowly, wondering if he'll ever adjust to this, let alone in two days. The bed on the left side is neatly made up, so that's a relief at least. There's a small nightstand beside it, just big enough to hold a glass of water and not much more, and a cork board above it.

Looking over at the opposite side of the room, it looks exactly the same, except for the board being decorated with an entire plethora of 'get well soon' cards. It is a curious thing to send to somebody who is being hospitalized for a chronic case of trying to end their own life.

His board is depressingly bare by contrast.

"I'll leave you alone for a bit." The doctor excuses herself, and Papyrus realizes this is it. He turns to Sans and his brother has his hands stuffed down his pockets, looking around the bare room as if it's the most interesting thing in the world.

Anything better than looking at his face.

When Papyrus hugs him he's forced to raise his head, meeting his empty eye sockets with his.

"You don't have to do this. You know that right?" Sans mumbles, and he's shaking, just a little bit.

Papyrus thinks of the past few weeks. Of not eating because he just couldn't bring himself to anymore. Of collapsing onto the kitchen floor and almost bashing his skull in against the corner of their table. Of how scared Sans was when finding him. Of having to admit he wished he had died instead.

He _does_ have to do this.

"It's fine." He says, one hand tugging itself between their bodies so he can touch his brother's cheek, like when they were little. "I'll be back before you know it."

"That's a lie." Sans answers, with a soft self-deprecating laugh that makes Papyrus wonder if maybe he hasn't been fooling him for as long as he can remember after all.

They don't say anything more and when Sans leaves he just waves, as if they're going to see each other again tomorrow.

Papyrus sits on the bed, until it's dark outside and a nurse comes by to check on him. She closes the curtains and tells him he should try to get some sleep.

He says he will, then proceeds to sit in the exact same position for the rest of the night.

* * *

He's immensely relieved to find oatmeal at breakfast. Then again, the entire meal seems to be made up of the blandest, most tasteless things imaginable. It suits Papyrus just fine.

There aren't lot of people, dotted around the tables at odd intervals, casting eyes around the room almost suspiciously.

The nurse has explained to him yesterday that those that could, would be gone for the weekend, preferring to spend it with family or loved ones. Patients who are still here are either too unstable to be permitted home, or have nobody left to go to.

No wonder they aren't the most uplifting bunch.

Papyrus observes them quietly as they shuffle around the room. One woman scratches her arms restlessly, long black hair tied into a messy bun that looks quite pretty. He vaguely recalls her also arriving yesterday, Papyrus saw her getting the same tour he did.

He wonders if she feels just as helpless right now.

Another nurse walks into the room, not the same as the one he met yesterday, and the only reason he recognizes her to not be a patient herself is because of the name tag on her blouse. The professionals here don't wear clean white scrubs to announce their status.

They look just like regular people. But perhaps the patients do too.

A institution of lies, then.

The nurse approaches the black-haired woman and hands her a little plastic cup from her tray, and a glass of water. She looks at it hesitatingly, unsure what to do.

"I have to see you take it." The nurse says, loud enough for Papyrus to actually overhear, and the woman responds with a mumble.

A man interrupts them rudely, the nurse hands him a plastic cup as well and he empties it into his hand. An entire collection of pills: white, blue, pink tumbles into his palm.

"I'll show you how it's done, sweetheart." He says, and the woman physically cringes. He proceeds to raise his arm and downs the handful of medicine in one go, swallowing heavily. "You just try and get used to that one tiny pill. That's how we all start around here."

He walks away with a grin and the woman blinks twice. Papyrus wonders if she's going to cry.

He wonders what he would do if she would.

* * *

Apparently, there is such a thing as 'institution privileges'. It sounds like something very complicated, but it really isn't.

It simply means that, right now, he is a prisoner.

There is a door to the garden, a small area of brick and grass with too tall walls surrounding it, like they need to be kept away from the eyes of the public. Like they are not something that belongs in the outside world.

In a way, Papyrus thinks they're right.

The door is locked at all times, only to be opened with permission of one of the nurses. Papyrus doesn't know how to ask them.

It's funny how he never noticed he was so bad with people before.

The doctor said it will be a while before he is allowed to go home for the weekends, as an 'out-patient'. He is allowed to call Sans though, but only at certain times.

And you're not allowed to be in your bedroom throughout the day.

This, perhaps surprisingly, is what bothers him most.

Papyrus sits at the edge of one of the living room's tables and drinks cup after cup of horrible tea that makes him long for home. He doesn't talk to anyone, and nobody talks to him. He just stares at the wall and wishes he could simply stop.

* * *

It takes him an entire day to figure out there even is a 'recreation room' in the first place, and he only does because he stumbled on it by accident.

There's some more tables and a tv set you need permission for to watch (no surprises there). A collection of books that look old and torn. And a cupboard full of puzzles. Papyrus stands before them and strokes one finger along the edges, collecting the dust.

"Do you like puzzles?" It's the same man he saw taking a rather impressive pill cocktail the first morning he was here. It's the only person, other than the nurses, who has addressed Papyrus since coming here.

"It's ok to take one, you know?" The man laughs, as Papyrus stands too stunned to give an answer. His hands run along the boxes too, in search for something.

He is wearing short sleeves and Papyrus can see impressive tattoos crawling up his arms, disappearing beneath the fabric. The ink stretches all the way to his wrists too, where the black lines are interposed with pale white markings.

Scars.

Papyrus looks away quickly, not wanting to stare, and rubs his own arm unconsciously. "Puzzles can be a lot of fun. But I hadn't seen anyone come in here." He says haltingly.

The man wipes his hands clean on his cotton pants and frowns. "That's because it's the weekend. Let's just say that..." He casts a glance over his shoulder, but they are still the only two in the room. "Let's just say that they're not very representative of the normal folk we have here."

Papyrus doesn't know if he should question what constitutes for 'normal folk' in a mental institution, if there even is such a thing. Before he can open his mouth to do so, the man is already continuing.

"They're too scared to talk to you, since you're not human and all. I wouldn't be too bothered." He hasn't been looking at Papyrus the entire time he was talking, eyes caught on the open doorway instead. "I'm Marcus, by the way."

They shake hands and Papyrus introduces himself too, he has just spent enough time on the surface to learn this particular human greeting ritual.

Footsteps resound in the hallway and a nurse passes the door. Marcus lets go of his hand abruptly and runs out the room without continuing the conversation.

Perplexed, Papyrus watches him go.

* * *

He has chosen a puzzle of over 10 000 pieces and sits making it at his usual spot on the edge of the table. The picture is of a forest in autumn, a beautiful combination of red, orange and yellow. From time to time, Marcus will plop down in the seat across from him, occasionally sorting out a few pieces of similar color for Papyrus to use.

Then, something will catch his eye and off he goes. It doesn't take long for him to notice Marcus keeps walking the same route through the institution, like a guard doing his rounds. They don't exchange another word either.

Papyrus is content in the silence.

* * *

That afternoon, he's sitting outside the little nurse's office on an uncomfortable bench. The phone shakes in his hand, unsure whether to dial or not. But Sarah, the woman who handed him the phone and who's name he only knows because he managed to read her name tag, is looking more impatient by the minute and he doesn't want to ruin his chance.

Dialing home is always a weird thing to do, probably.

It rings three times, for a second Papyrus thinks Sans won't answer and he isn't sure if he should be as happy as he is, before his brother's voice reaches him through the speaker.

"Bro, is that you?"

"It's me." His legs wobble up and down anxiously, fabric rubbing against bone. It's strange to wear different clothes from his battle body, unreal somehow. But also comforting, like it's somebody else all this is happening to and not him.

They're silent for a bit. Sarah coughs into her fist in a rather unsubtle manner.

"So... how are things back at home?" He asks, hating how tiny his voice sounds. Like he's a child again, scared of everything.

"Oh, things are fine. Quiet, of course." Sans goes on to relay about something he and Toriel did the day before, Papyrus tunes out and stares at the wall some more, occasionally making a sound to pretend he's interested.

When Sans really starts to drag the story on, he realizes his brother is simply too scared to ask him how he's doing.

He's scared Papyrus hates it there and he has inadvertently helped condemn him to weeks or months of miserable solitude.

"Things are great here." He says in a beat of silence, hearing Sans sigh almost as if a physical weight fell off his shoulders. "It's very calm, I like that. The food is nice and they have a lot of puzzles."

It sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than Sans, even though it's the truth. It's really a great place for Papyrus to be.

Still, he rather be dead.

* * *

When evening rolls around more people are there. They came in quietly, carrying odd combinations of bags, as if they just returned from a peaceful vacation.

A vacation to the real world.

And now they're back here, where the sick people reside.

Most of them flee to the garden, drawn to the sunlight and fresh air by instinct, prolonging their sense of normality, and Papyrus paces the little hallway in front of it, staring out the window at the trees in dusk.

He is still unsure of his privileges and, in extension, if he's even allowed in the garden at all right now. All he knows is that the nurses have the keys and he's not talking to any of them.

When Marcus comes by, a pack of cigarettes curled in one fist, he frowns. "Do you want to go out?"

Papyrus startles, rubbing the back of his head. "I don't know if-"

"Hey Jackie." Marcus stops a woman who was just passing through by touching her shoulder. She doesn't seem fazed by this. "It's alright for the new one to come out for a bit, right?"

She hesitates, mouth opening and closing a few times. "The doctor hasn't spoken about your privileges with you yet, has she?"

Papyrus shakes his head, hoping her sense of duty will be greater than her empathy and she'll refuse Marcus's request.

"What is he gonna do, scale a wall?" The man in question jokes, and Papyrus decides this probably isn't the best time to mention blue magic and how that works. "Come on, I'll keep an eye on him, I promise."

Marcus pleads some more, long enough for Jackie to roll her eyes at him and give in while Papyrus feels his soul shrivel up inside him.

Opening the garden door makes an unpleasant sound and everybody turns their heads at them, only making him want to sink into the ground more vehemently.

Marcus ignores their stares, herding him over to a round plastic table instead, where a few chairs are already occupied by various people, some smoking cigarettes.

Papyrus introduces himself shortly, trying to commit their names to memory. They continue their conversation almost immediately, as if he wasn't there. In a strange sense, it's rather comforting.

Looking at them, Papyrus can't help but wonder at how stunningly ordinary all these humans look. Though perhaps, by skeleton standards, he doesn't look very insane himself.

"So what are you in for?" Somebody suddenly implores, forcing him to snap to attention. It is the man sitting next to Marcus, but Papyrus can't remember his name at all.

The woman with the long black hair, who he saw at breakfast the first morning and knows to be fairly new herself, pushes against his arm and frowns. "Don't do that." She says, though her voice comes out more like a mumble.

The man laughs, slapping his knee as if it's all a joke. "Oh come on, we're all partners in crime here."

He continues to stare at Papyrus, who blinks back in response. When has he gotten so bad at words?

"Don't react, he's just messing with you." Marcus says quickly. "You don't have to tell us anything."

"Of course you don't. We'll hear it eventually." The man laughs even harder, and the woman, whom Papyrus now recalls is called Emma, crosses her arms in front of herself protectively.

Paige, a reserved older woman who is also at their table and hasn't said much more than her name, just looks at the proceedings silently.

Suddenly a sixth person joins them, plopping down on the only seat left empty, to Papyrus's left.

"What's so hilarious this time?" They ask, sitting on the seat with crossed legs. It's not how you're supposed to sit on a wobbly old garden chair, Papyrus thinks, but he doesn't say so.

"Not much. We're acclimating the new one." Marcus takes yet another cigarette from his pack, his fifth one for the evening. "Your new roommate."

"Oh, in that case." They turn to Papyrus and smile. Their hair is messy and uneven, barely reaching their shoulders. They look at him with dark friendly eyes that remind him a lot of Frisk. "Nice to meet you, roommate. I'm Alex."

Papyrus notes how they don't shake his hand, preferring to keep them hidden inside the cuffs of a too long sweater, only using them to brush the reddish strands of hair from their face.

"So, what are you in for?" They ask, and Emma groans loudly while the man, whose name Papyrus still can't remember, breaks out in chuckles again.

But this time, Papyrus has an answer prepared.

"I wish to die." He says promptly, grin firm in place. These humans don't seem nearly as startled as others would be at such a proclamation and Papyrus decides he likes them for it.

They would be great friends.

"Do you, now?" Alex shakes their head wistfully, looking at the darkening sky above. "I think we'll get along just fine then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little pet project of mine I'll work on while completing Silencio. Updates will be Friday and Sunday.
> 
> It's a bit different from my other stories so let me know what you think?
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

Sans is sitting across from him at the table. Papyrus is making another puzzle, he finished the first one in a matter of hours and has now chosen something that should pose more of a challenge: an old 50 000 pieces variation. The nurses already joked that they should get some more complicated sets, if they want to keep him entertained.

"Did you know this place is called PUUH?" Sans asks, fingers roving over the assorted pieces. They've already been arranged by color, but he's searching for corner pieces. Those are the easiest after all.

"Puh?" Papyrus echoes, finishing another part of what he supposes must be a flamingo. He's not sure, he has only seen them in magazines before. One day, he wants to visit the zoo.

Once he gets out of here, that is.

"No, PUUH. Apparently it stands for Psychiatric Unit of the University Hospital." Sans is trying to force one of the pieces where it isn't supposed to go and Papyrus lets him. He knows his brother is in a bad state when he is spouting random facts.

His absence must be more tiring on him than this whole ordeal is being on Papyrus himself.

"I see." He mumbles. There are about 30 shades of blue in this one puzzle and Sans appears to be getting none of them.

There is a "get better soon" card on the table between them, signed by everybody but Sans himself, and the irony is so real it hurts a little bit. Papyrus still has to decide whether to keep it or throw it in the trash.

Sans leaves half an hour later, no more words exchanged between them. Papyrus doesn't want to talk about life inside these walls because he knows it hurts his brother. Sans doesn't want to talk about life outside these walls because it hurts them both.

Is silence better than lies?

Jackie, one of the few nurses Papyrus actually likes, stops at the table and starts fixing Sans's mistake, prying the forced pieces loose with gently fingers. "It was fine for him to stay a bit longer, you know? There's more than an hour left."

Papyrus raises his head, watching the room.

Visitation hour is a curious thing. Pale people wringing their hands, talking in low whispers. Treating them all like fragile glass, something that could break any moment or is already full of cracks.

The way Papyrus has been treated for longer than he can remember.

And one of the things he likes about the others in here, that they're not like that.

"No. It's perfect like this." He says, putting another piece into place.

* * *

It's somewhere in the middle of the night and nothing is silent.

There are always noises here, and Papyrus likes that too. He likes the slight sound of breathing from the other side of the room, Alex turning over in their sleep. A distant laughing from the night duty and a rhythmic knocking that might or might not be coming from solitary confinement.

He likes his room. And as he stares at the board above his roommate's bed he realizes why.

Alex has been here for 8 weeks. There lies a part of them here: letters from friends or family, or a stuffed elephant from their parents. Mementos of a life outside these walls they one day hope to return to.

Papyrus knows his side of the room looks cold in comparison. Empty and anonymous.

He knows why he feels he belongs here. Because there is nothing of his in this room. Nothing to remember him by when he's gone.

And that's exactly how it should be.

* * *

He must admit that this office is far more cozy than the halls of the actual institution manage to be. The color scheme isn't half as sickening and the chairs don't look quite as worn.

And the PhDs on the wall are probably supposed to impress him, Papyrus thinks. But Sans has been taking classes at one of those fancy schools ever since they came to the surface and he's horrible at giving advice.

This is it. The salvation at the top of the stairs, as he has heard Marcus joke. On the ground floor the patients and nurses try to get through the day while up here, the doctors are busy working to save you.

Return you to sanity and civilization.

Either that, or write you off as a lost cause and send you home to wallow in misery until you end it yourself. Papyrus wonders which of these two will happen to him.

Dr. Miller is a psychiatrist and Dr. Audley is a psychologist and while he doesn't know the difference, Papyrus nods along as they explain stuff to him because that's what a good patient does, he learned.

All he gets from their talk is that there will be a lot more talking after this, and he isn't sure if he's happy to hear that, since he's no very good at words anymore.

Actually, he is, as long as he can repeat the same rehearsed lines over and over again, but that probably won't go ever well here.

At least it's called 'group therapy' and the prospect of not having to be alone in this is slightly comforting.

They tell him he's allowed to paint too, or draw, keep his hands busy and that's a good thing right?

"Alright then." Dr. Miller turns some pages over from the impressive collection in front of her and Papyrus wonders if they're all about him. It would be kind of funny if they were. "Let's talk privileges."

He sits up straighter at the mention of what seems to be the magic word within the confines of this institution. He has been waiting for this ever since he thought of his plan, during his first sleepless night.

"If I'm correct, you don't have any right now?" Dr. Miller muses, not looking at him. Papyrus doesn't give an answer because she doesn't appear to need one.

"What do _you_ think would be best for you?" She asks, and it feels like everything stops.

In his short time since coming here, not once has anybody asked Papyrus what _he_ thinks. Sans had, but more in a 'please validate my choice for allowing this to happen to you' way, not because he actually cares.

Sans never cared.

It's mind boggling to say the least.

"What I think?" he repeats dumbly, and the other one, Dr. Audley, makes more notes on his pad.

"As of right now, it is clear that you would know yourself a lot better than we do. You are here of your own volition because you know you need help. There would be little sense in not asking your opinion, would there?" She explains.

Papyrus blinks, all he is hearing is that somebody is asking for his honest estimation and not just another rehearsed script they have heard ten times before, but which will soothe their guilt.

_They want to know what he thinks?_

"I think the garden should be fine." He says carefully, slowly. "I heard fresh air helps when you're in a bad mood."

She raises an eyebrow but nods. "What about walks?"

He stutters, feels something caught in his throat. "I-i don't know if-"

"It of course would have to be with supervision, but some people find it helps relief stress and make sure you don't disconnect from the outside world.. As long as you can keep it save, of course."

He can't breathe, wringing the fabric of his shirt between his fingers until he can feel little tears forming. The simple question of what he thinks has seemed to thrown everything off kilter, leaving him unstable, unbalanced. He's giving himself away in his hesitation, he knows. "I don't think that-" But it sticks in his throat and he wants to hurl.

" _Can_ you keep it safe, Papyrus?" The stare she fixes on him goes straight through him.

The pieces of his plan lay shattered before him. His silence is more telling than any words.

The world would be a lot saver without him in it, he thinks.

"How were you going to do it?" Dr. Miller sighs but she doesn't look disappointed, barely a relief right now. She might have heard this spiel a million times before.

"There's a pedestrian bridge not far from here." he mumbles, staring at his hands. He doesn't want to look at their stares right now, or see them writing down how insane he must be. He doesn't want any of this anymore. "It was supposed to look like an accident."

It has to, he reminds himself, for Sans's sake.

"I see." Dr. Miller nods again. "You'll understand we can't allow that. But the garden should be fine."

She exchanges a glance with Dr. Audley, a wordless conversation in that peculiar way only humans can, and that is that.

They're not going to allow him to die.

* * *

He has his first art therapy the following day.

So far it has mostly consisted of Lene, who is a professional but prefers to be called by her first name because "we're all friends here.", handing them paper and paints and telling them to just do whatever they feel most comfortable with.

Papyrus makes something of gray and yellow, flecks of dust against a sea of golden flowers perhaps, and doesn't realize two hours have passed until Marcus tells him.

His canvas is full of black and red and purple, and Papyrus can't tell what it's supposed to be either.

Lene says they can finish their works another time, and then discuss them together.

His fingers brush against the still wet paint, blur the grey and yellow into an ugly brown along the edges.

Papyrus doesn't think there's anything to say about this.

* * *

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

Papyrus looks up and it's Parker, the head nurse of their department.

"I'm not allowed to." He answers quickly, fingers closing around a puzzle piece so tight it hurts, and Parker laughs.

"I know, I meant around the hospital grounds. They have a little gift shop you might be interested in." His teeth are too white, smile a bit too forced, but Alex told him Parker is a 'good guy, just too fucking tired to work this unit anymore.'

"Working with mentally unstable people will often drive you a little crazy yourself." Marcus had joked, making a distinctly human gesture Papyrus doesn't know, a tapping against the side of his head.

He gets up from the table, leaves his puzzle right where it is because he knows nobody will touch it. They walk straight out those same doors Papyrus first came in through, about 4 days ago now, and it's strange, like walking right into the real world again.

Real people doing real things and living real lives.

There is something off about the mental ward, Papyrus had know that since he first set foot in there. But until now, he was unable to put his finger on what exactly was wrong.

It's the flow of time.

Time doesn't feel like it's passing in there, just going round and round in circles of routines. You get up, you eat. You make puzzles, you eat. You have therapy, you eat. You go to bed.

It reminds him of what life was like back underground and it comforts him, makes him feel right.

Makes him feel save in a way the surface world hasn't been able to before, no matter how bright and colorful and beautiful it is.

Out here the world keeps turning and time only moves forwards, never backwards. Time moves the way it is supposed to move and Papyrus feels like he can't keep up.

Like everything is rushing past him, while he stays stuck on the floor. It makes him wonder why he's still here at all.

If he should just go and let it move past without him.

"Why the shop?" He asks, watching as a woman in a wheelchair gets pushed by cradling her newborn child in gentle arms. A sight that doesn't touch him like it used to.

"I figured you might want to get something for your room. It looks a bit bare, doesn't it?" Parker is trying too hard and Papyrus knows it.

"I don't need anything." He says.

"What about your brother?"

"What about him?" It's hard to walk steady like this, going forward. Papyrus rather stand still.

"He's coming to visit again tomorrow, isn't he? Maybe you could get something for him?"

Papyrus opens his mouth to tell Parker that Sans doesn't need anything, certainly not from him, but he stops.

He thinks of things that used to be. Of heading out into cold and snow to visit their local little store, of the smell of cinnamon bunnies and the kind smile of the shopkeeper. Making a list beforehand, but always ending up buying something small for Sans that they don't really need.

Because it's the only thing that changes. Because, considering the resets, it's not even a waste of money. And maybe simply because he can.

Like a little piece of their home, because that is what Snowdin still is, even if Sans doesn't see it anymore. It's oddly reassuring just to just think about.

* * *

"Do you still want to die?" Parker asks him as they walk back.

Papyrus thinks it over before nodding. "But not more than I normally do."

"Normally?" It comes out like a little laugh, a surprised sound.

"Well... how do I say this..." They make it back to the doors to their unit and Papyrus wants to sigh in relief, only now noticing how tired he is. "Not more than anyone else."

They stop, just inside the doors, with Parker grabbing his arm.

"You think everybody wants to die?" The corner of his mouth makes a weird movement, like he wants to smile but can't.

"No, of course not everyone has an acute and chronic death wish." Papyrus explains patiently. "But I mean deep inside... everybody would be happier dead."

Parker frowns at him. It takes another minute for him to let go. "I don't think that's true." He says carefully. "Wanting to die is a symptom, not an integral part of life. It means you need help. It's why you're here."

He walks down the hallway with his hands on his back and Papyrus watches him go.

* * *

The sky is turning from bright blue to a dull purple, like the layers of colored sand they poured in a jar during art therapy today. Papyrus made two, one in orange and blue for his room, and one with the colors of the night sky, to give to Sans.

Papyrus sits next to Marcus again, who is in a bad mood because he's only allowed a certain amount of cigarettes per day now, and had already reached the quota of his permitted vice by noon.

"How is the acclimating going?" Alex asks. As his roommate, they have decided Papyrus is their responsibility, and there's not much he can say to change their mind.

"Adopted by the best." Marcus said, looking like it hurt. Papyrus doesn't know why.

"I'm fine." he answers, trying to stop his hands from shaking by sitting on them.

'Fine' means a completely different thing within these walls as it does outside, and all of them know it.

Paige shuffles over from her corner of the garden, where she was busy staring into nothing. She tends to do that from time to time.

"Did you know Nathan is dead? He overdosed yesterday." She asks suddenly, the most words Papyrus had heard her say in one go since they met.

"Holy shit, are you for real?" Alex bursts out, while Marcus scoffs, muttering a "lucky them" under his breathe.

Seeing his confused face, Alex exhales and rubs at red-rimmed eyes. "Nathan got released two weeks ago. He was supposed to be better." Their voice is pained, tired. Like this has happened too many time already.

"Guess he wasn't." Marcus gets up and goes inside, his scars even more pronounced in the soft light of the sunset.

* * *

Papyrus lies in bed and stares at the tiny cactus he got from the gift shop. It has a small purple pot and looks just right on his bedside table, next to his jar. He took the card from Sans and put it under his pillow, something that can be his and his alone.

He thinks of the reactions to Nathan's dead, and Parker's assurance that not everybody wants to die.

He thought he would be jealous, envious of somebody that got what he wanted to have.

But he feels empty instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and positive reactions <3
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

News of Nathan's death travels fast within the institution, like wildfire. Papyrus can tell from their faces, from their tight fists and wary eyes, that this is not the first time somebody recently released killed themselves.

And it won't be the last time either.

He can't tell who is having a harder time, the nurses or the other patients, all he knows is that Nathan used to be in his room, in his bed, before he got released, deemed cured. He used to be Alex's roommate.

Alex fidgets with the cap on their pill bottle, hands shaking too much to open it. Papyrus takes it from them wordlessly, and they smile.

"Thanks. These damn side effects." They stare at their own trembling fingers, but there is an unmistakable hollowness to their voice that says more than anything else.

"Did you ever try to do it?" He asks suddenly, unsure why. At night, he has been awake thinking about wanting to die and the startling revelation that he's not the only one with that desire permanently residing in the back of his mind.

Alex sighs and stares out the window. "Only once, right after-" They cut themselves off and turn back towards him. "I brought a rope and took the train to a nearby forest. I... I didn't want to do it at home because then my family would be the ones to find me and I just couldn't do that to them, after all I did. That's the least I owned them."

There's so much self-loathing in their voice, it reminds Papyrus of Sans right after a reset where he had died. A kind of helplessness and guilt that can't be erased by the goodwill of those you love forgiving you.

It sticks to your mind and festers.

"Well, I got there and... do you know what happened?" Alex stares at him, their eyes aren't wet, just tired, there are bags beneath them that tell Papyrus his roommate hasn't gotten any sleep either.

"There weren't any trees?" It's a dumb joke he heard on a television show once. Alex smiles.

"The rope was too long." They say. "It took me forever to even find a branch that was sturdy enough, the right height, easy enough to reach. I was so on edge already. Then I tied the rope and it was too fucking long. I couldn't manage to pry it loose again, I panicked, so I... just went back home."

They manage to remain silent for all of three seconds, staring at each other, before both break out in surprised laughter, a morbid humor that seems to serve you well in the loony bin.

"I admit it was kind of stupid." Alex mumbles between laughs, face red in embarrassment.

"Do you think the rope is still there?" Papyrus asks when he manages to get back his bearings, and Alex startles.

"I... I suppose it is." They answer, before laughing again, even harder.

A passing nurse looks at them as if they've truly lost their minds now, which might be exactly what is happening.

But Papyrus feels something inside him, he hasn't felt since setting foot on these off-colored tile floors. A shred of pure, undiluted amusement at the ridiculousness that is life.

* * *

Sans can't stand the institution and Papyrus knows it. He becomes somehow smaller when they're inside, hunched in upon himself as if the walls are physically crushing him.

Or the weight of his sins, perhaps.

Papyrus doesn't need to be told his brother feels guilty. Sans has been feeling guilty ever since they were little kids, about all the things he wanted to give Papyrus, but couldn't.

And then, when they were older, all the things he should have done for Papyrus, but didn't.

Jackie, who has seemed to take a liking to Papyrus for reasons he can hardly phantom, gives him a bag of old bread leftover from breakfast and says it's ok, as long as they stick to the hospital grounds and Sans is with him.

So they walk down to the pond instead.

It's a shallow, dirty thing, squeezed between two buildings and so deprived of sunshine nothing beautiful could thrive there. A few mud-colored ducks waddle around the blackened water idly and Sans and Papyrus take turns throwing the bread at them.

"The others are asking about you." Sans tells him, tossing a too big piece that is likely to choke the poor things. Papyrus takes the next piece from his hand and shows him how it's done, breaking it into tiny crumbs.

"Are they?" He has to strain to not sound so disinterested. Somehow, he finds it hard to believe anyone would care about where he is, what he is doing.

He has hardly thought about his friends at all in the past week.

"Yes, they..." Sans throws him a look, gauging his reaction. "They want to come visit too."

The bag makes an unpleasant sound as Papyrus clutches at it, gritting his teeth. "No."

Sans sighs and grabs his wrist to stop him from tearing the thing to bits. "Look, Paps, they're just worried, ok?"

"No." Papyrus repeats firmly, scared at the anger in his own voice. "I didn't even want them to know I was here."

"What the fuck else was I supposed to tell them?" Sans blurts, grasping more tightly now. The helplessness is back and it is eating him alive.

"Maybe you should have told them I went on vacation. That worked out so well for you in the past."

Sans lets go of him as if struck, the hurt on his face almost too much for Papyrus to take. But not enough for him to actually regret his words.

"You know why I did that." Sans bites out, and it looks as if he wants to cry but can't.

"I'm sorry." Papyrus lies. He takes his brother's hand again but its not the same anymore. Like touching stone.

He remembers those first confessions, the horror Sans showed when Papyrus told him he knew all along was palpable. It could fill a room and choke you. How they fought and how they cried and how they were finally forced to acknowledge that something between them was broken.

They have been broken for a long time.

He remembers how Sans kept repeating that he was only trying to do what was best for them, even weeks after that first conversation, he was only doing what was best for Papyrus. He didn't want to hurt him. He never did.

And Papyrus knows that's true, for what it's worth.

But then again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions too and he wonders if they have walked too far down it to turn back anymore.

* * *

When they return to the unit he forces Sans to wait for him in the hallway while he runs to his room to retrieve his gifts. Curious patients meander in the opening to the common room, all eager for some entertainment, but Marcus shoos them away.

First, Papyrus hands Sans the little jar of colored sand, purple, blue and black, so eerily alike the surface night sky, but without the stars.

(That's all Papyrus ever wanted, to give Sans the stars, and even such a simple task proves impossible for him.)

And then, the little bag of potato chips he got at the gift shop.

Sans stares at it and blinks, momentarily forgetting their earlier disagreement. "What's this, bro?"

"They're ketchup flavored." Papyrus tries not to make a face, imagining the taste is a horrible experience in itself. "They didn't have any actual ketchup, I'm afraid."

The realization dawns on his brother's face slowly, creeps in until he's giving a watery smirk that is unsteady around the edges. Papyrus knows he remembers.

Sans hugs him and while it's still not the same, while today has obviously done something that won't be so easily erased, it feels warm and he leans into it.

"Frisk." He says, as they both pull back. "Frisk can come visit if they want. And Alphys too. They should be fine."

He feels numb, unreal. Saying these names means nothing anymore.

"Just. Not Undyne, ok? Not her, she shouldn't-" He wipes his eyes, doesn't want to break down in front of Sans.

He has already done that once and look where that got him.

His brother nods and when he leaves he waves again, just like the first time. It feels eerily nostalgic.

* * *

There's a tiny space between the fridge and the old dusty bookshelf in the recreation room. It's just big enough for Papyrus to fit, if he folds himself up and sits on his haunches, leaning his head against his knees.

It's not as comfortable as his closet used to be, he misses the calming darkness or the feel of clothes rubbing against his spine, but it serves its purpose well.

Locking out the world and forgetting he exists for a while.

Until Alex comes to find him at least. They pull him up as if he weighs nothing, steadies him with firm hands. "Let's get you some fresh air." They say. "That will make you feel better."

Papyrus wishes it were that simple.

* * *

"For those of you who have just recently joined us, once every two weeks we have a short gathering to discuss any problems or concerns about the living arrangements." Parker lets his gaze flit across them slowly.

Papyrus is sitting on the couch, squeezed between Marcus on his left and Alex on his right. His institution guardians, as Emma jokes.

"This has nothing to do with therapy or treatment, just the day-to-day life in the unit." Parker says in answer to the few concerned gazes. "Anything concerning we might encounter."

"Like piss on the floor and shit on the walls." Marcus says quietly, and Alex giggles, though Papyrus isn't sure why.

Parker sends them a sharp glare, before turning to his notepad with a polite cough. "First of, it has come to our attention that there has been a lot of snacking in front of the tv lately. You know it's fine to eat something after dinner hours, but this is not a fraternity house or a bar. This is a health institution, things shouldn't get _too_ cozy around here."

There is some polite complaining from the patients that dies down quickly. Papyrus doesn't say anything, he barely eats during the appointed times, let alone outside them.

"Secondly, it has been informed to us that some patients have taken to calling each other 'colleagues' and we would really prefer for this to stop."

Alex sniggers again, being the one that came up with the joke. "What would you 'prefer' then, my highness."

"Just fellow-patient just serve fine." Parker deadpans.

"I thought we were clients, not patients?" Papyrus asks innocently, having a hard time keeping the grin from his face.

Now Marcus is laughing too and their head nurse rolls his eyes. "Fellow-client then."

"That's ridiculous. That makes it sound like we're in a supermarket or something." Alex complains and Marcus nods besides him.

"A supermarket with only one product, where the cashier decides what you get to buy and customer service has the same answer to every question." He says. "'have another pill'."

Parker goes with the diplomatic choice to ignore them and continues down his list. "Finally, it's pretty clear everybody already knows about what happened to a former patient of ours. In the future, we would like these kind of things to be kept discreet, instead of it serving as gossip around the breakfast table."

Nobody responds.

PUUH stories, is what they call them. The kind of stories everybody knows around here.

Like how Paige has lost three children during childbirth or how Nathan couldn't deal with the death of his husband or how Papyrus wants to die.

Stories that scratch the bare surface of why they're here, that get revealed in stray comments without thought and are hard to take back. The kind of little pieces of other people's agony that might be the only thing getting you to not succumb to yours.

There is never any news at the PUUH. Only second-hand suffering.

Parker dismisses them and most patients shuffle off to eat, eager for whatever blandness is on the menu today. Papyrus stays seated because both Marcus and Alex do too.

When the room is empty and the only sound is rain hitting the glass window panes Marcus sighs.

"They don't know shit." He says, to none of them in particular and Papyrus feels like he has to agree.

* * *

He considers telling them, sometimes. What it felt like to die.

"It hurts." He wants to say, because it did. The first time it was really painful and after that it just lingered.

Every reset, even the ones where he didn't die, it remained. He stopped feeling it after a while, but it was always there, in the back of his mind. Distracting himself helped. Being loud and obnoxious and cheerful helped. Not eating helps.

Now he feels it almost as clearly as that first time. He knows death would make it go away.

But now he secretly wonders if they could make it go away too.

* * *

Apparently yellow and grey is a meaningful color combination. Lene says she likes his painting, that he has talent, and Papyrus remembers the bridge back in Snowdin.

Nobody ever told him he did a good job with that, but he feels like he did still. It was a time consuming process, but the pride he felt every time he saw it made up for hours on his knees in the cold snowy air.

But yellow and gray? That's no good.

'Evil pretending to be kind', that's the meaning, and Papyrus thinks of golden petals and jagged teeth and the sound bones make when they get crushed.

He thinks of picking up the phone and calling everybody he knows, going down the empty judgement hall while cradling his right arm, knowing it will be broken in a little bit. Already feeling the pain.

Marcus made something really hectic that makes Lene furrow her brows and seriously ask him if he was just throwing paint at the canvas at random. Marcus shrugs and that is that.

Alex made a painting of a beautiful tree in summer, surrounded by grassy hills and a blue, open sky. A beautiful picture, if it weren't for the noose hanging from the branches.

* * *

The little corner of the table Papyrus has commandeered for his puzzling is really the ideal place to be.

The light is bright, three rows of harsh florescent tubes adorning the ceiling. No other patient would willingly spent time here. His lack of eyeballs makes Papyrus an exception to the rule.

And being alone suits him just fine.

Moreover, from this spot, he can see anything interesting that goes on within the institution. On the left, a clear view of the common room, the odd patient reading a book and talking, or whiling away the time until their next therapy session or meal with brainless television.

On the other side, after moving his table a strategical 5 inches forward, nothing obstructs his sight of the nurses office and everything that passes through there. Professionals or patients alike.

And it is comforting, Papyrus realizes. Snowdin was a little town where everybody knew everybody and the most interesting news to report was how much snow they had each given week.

When you think about it the institution isn't much different.

Especially sitting at his table, making puzzle after puzzle and in total control of his surroundings.

Nothing like how the surface world actually turned out to be.

Marcus comes back from another round and helps him look for pieces of an enormous boat. One of the nurses told Papyrus it's famous because it sank and a lot of people died, and he thinks that's kind of a sad thing to be famous for. Especially for such a good-looking boat.

He can hear Alex screaming at the tv from the other room, there's football on and they can get really into it. Emma is telling them to quiet down, despite being just as loud herself.

"Have you ever been on one of these?" Marcus asks, some of his scars look angry and red, Papyrus can tell he has been scratching at them.

"Not one this big, no." Papyrus says.

"Me neither. I don't like water much." He hands Papyrus a piece that looks like it belongs on the bottom, where he can't reach.

"Maybe we should go together sometime." Papyrus suggest. "As long as it isn't this one." He gestures at the puzzle, that is nearly complete now.

Marcus laughs, not in his usual sardonic way that makes Papyrus think of Undyne lying on the couch wondering why Alphys dies.

But loud and real.

"We'd need to get out of here first, but it's a promise." His nails are chipped and one of them has dried blood beneath it, but when Marcus sticks out his hand Papyrus takes it.

"Promise." He says, not able to remember when he last made plans for the future.

The team probably scored because there is a lot of cheering coming from the other room. Papyrus thinks this might be what happiness feels like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments guys! You keep me going <3
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

"I... felt really happy. It's weird, isn't it?" Papyrus mumbles into the dark. He's lying on his bed, unable to sleep yet again. Alex is on their knees, spits some leftover bile into the bucket and groans. They've done nothing but puke all night.

Side effects again.

They look over with a sigh. "What you're describing isn't happiness."

"It isn't?" He turns on his side, watches the way their short hair sticks out at weird angles in the moonlight.

Alex rubs against their mouth but doesn't get up. "No, it's not. Nobody can be truly happy in here."

Papyrus furrows his brow. "What about Emma? She looked extremely cheerful today."

"Bipolar disorder. She's just having a manic episode." Alex pushes the bucket away from them with a huff, crawling over to his bed on hands and knees and leaning against it.

"Marcus?" He asks.

"Disorganized schizophrenia." They mumble.

Papyrus sits up, his legs bump against Alex's side but neither seems to notice. "That doesn't make any sense. If nobody can feel happy in here, then what's the point?"

"The point is not to make you happy. It's to stop you from being numb." Alex turns around and crosses their arms, leaning them on his knees. Their eyes are dark, almost pure black. "They're going to try to fix your emotions, so you can experience happiness again. But there's a lot of other things that you'll start feeling again too."

"Is that what happened to you?" Papyrus asks, slowly. There are footsteps on the hallway, somebody of the night shift passing by their door.

"It's funny how much a human mind can repress." Alex isn't looking at him, but at the wall behind him. He wonders what they mean by that.

* * *

Frisk looks bigger than when he last saw them, sturdier. They are not that scared, fragile child tearing through their world anymore and breaking down the basics of time.

They look clean and healthy and worried. Papyrus is happy about those first two.

"I brought the things you asked for." Sans says, and he lays them out on the table. Some books and the Rubik cube Papyrus got for his latest birthday.

"Thank you." Papyrus says politely, not looking at him.

They sit awkwardly, staring at the table between them instead of at each other. Papyrus knows that their exchange from last time has been on his brother's mind like it has been on his and they're skirting around the edges of the gap between them.

A gap that has clearly always been there, but they have been ignoring for longer than was probably good for them.

Now they're staring at the abyss wondering who will take the plunge.

Papyrus knows Sans isn't ready for that.

Frisk turns their head and stares at him and Sans coughs, despite not having any lungs. "Ah, of course, I need to uh- Go do the thing, the very important thing."

He's gone in a flash and Papyrus is caught between being relieved and worried. The longer they don't talk, the worse this will become. This is just delay in execution. But the child across from him looks more anxious, jaw set and eyes brimming with tears and Papyrus startles.

"Human, w-what's wrong?" He grasps Frisk's hand across the table. "Is something bothering you? You can say anything to The Great Papyrus, remember?"

Slipping into his old role comes so naturally, nostalgic, like coming home to the place you've lived in all your live. Familiar and comfortable and maybe a little bit worn around the edges. They shake their head, upset, and pry loose their hands to sign at him.

It's moving so fast Papyrus can't tell what they're trying to convey. "I'm sorry." He says, just because there was something about fault and guilt in there and he can't look at Frisk like this, not them.

But the child stops, breathes deep and wipes the unshed tears out of chocolate-colored eyes.

"Is this my fault?" They sign, slow and deliberate so there can be no mistake.

Papyrus feels his soul sink to the bottom is his rib cage in an instant.

"No, of course it isn't. Why would you even think that, human?"

Frisk doesn't say anything, their hands are shaking and Papyrus covers them with his own again, notices how tiny they are in his. Something cold, icy, has wrapped itself around his throat. He has allowed them to think this.

"The resets?" He deduces and Frisk nods their head while biting on their lip, hard enough that Papyrus can see them lick the blood from broken skin.

"Look." He says, and the child meets his gaze with their eyes, nearly red when the light hits them just right. Beautiful and horrible. "I was... off. I was already off before you came to us."

Off like the color of the tiles in this institution and the tiles somewhere else that he can't remember. Somewhere he used to be, clawing at the ground and screaming in pain.

Off like the way he has been treated and has been acting and has been living after coming to Snowdin. Off like his and his brother's relationship.

Papyrus has been off for as long as he can remember.

Frisk removes their hands again, they haven't stopped shaking. "But I made it worse?"

Their face challenges him to lie, begs them not to. Papyrus doesn't know if he has the energy for it either way.

"Yes, it... certainly wasn't very conductive to my mental health." He tries not to smile, because it might be inappropriate.

They look away, guilty. Their eyes aren't wet anymore, but they acknowledge his pain. The consequences of their actions.

"It's ok." Papyrus says, and when the child raises their head he can see in their face that it isn't, it isn't ok by a long shot, but he presses on regardless. "It's ok, because thanks to you I'm also here now, and they're going to make me better."

"Do you really think so?" Frisk signs, eyes wide with fear and regret and hope. Sans probably isn't the only person Papyrus should have a serious long talk with sometime.

He considers how miserable he was and his plan to kill himself as soon as he had the chance to make it look accidental. He considers if he would still do it, should the opportunity present itself.

"I really think so." He confirms, and he's not even lying.

* * *

The recreation room is empty, apart from himself, as always. Papyrus is staring down at the flamingo puzzle, the one he has finished 16 times now.

It has the most pieces of all the puzzles in the institution, and now he is letting one hand roam over it, brushing the uneven surface with his fingertips. The box stands on the table, open and ready to receive its contents.

"Are you putting it away?" Marcus asks. His heavy steps make it impossible for him to sneak up on anyone, Papyrus heard him coming.

"Yes." He answers, pointedly doing just that. "I don't need it anymore, I'm better now."

His puzzle days are over.

"You're not better." Marcus says besides him, watching as Papyrus breaks apart the pieces. "You're just dissociating. Distancing yourself from your emotions."

"Distance is nice." Papyrus says, quietly. He could do with some distance.

Distance from his friends has seemed to serve them all for the best so far.

Marcus sighs and lays one hand on his shoulder, smiles mildly. "I bet you couldn't finish it in less than an hour."

For a second, Papyrus doesn't know what to do with that challenge. Then, he upends the box again, scattering pieces all over the surface, some hit the floor with a dull thud.

50 000 pieces.

Marcus laughs as he leaves the room, and Papyrus sits back down to make his puzzle.

* * *

Some barriers don't actually have to be there to hold you back.

There used to be one Underground, and they overcame, broke free of their subterranean prison and spilled out into the open. Now, Papyrus is standing at the edge of the PUUH, the little step that would bring him through the doors and into the hospital grounds proper. There is nothing to stop him from leaving.

Except an all encompassing fear in his gut.

He has crossed this line before, with Sans, because his brother doesn't like the unit and prefers to walk around while they talk. With Marcus or Alex, when they drag him down to the hospital store to buy cigarettes. But never by himself.

It is frightening.

Papyrus knows it was the surface world that destroyed him. He could have survived another decade Underground, going through the motions and pretending to care.

But when things changed he broke, the world crushed him.

And that world is out there now, just waiting for him to try again.

Somebody brushes past him, a fellow-patient (or fellow-client) who he doesn't really know, shuffling through the doors with an annoyed grumble at him just standing there.

But it takes him ten more minutes to actually move. Every step feels unreal, like it's not him but somebody else who is doing this. He holds the bag in his hands as if it might try to escape him any moment.

It's bright. Brighter than he remembers it being before, and Papyrus is happy when he reaches the second set of doors that will lead him outside. It doesn't take him as long to cross this threshold, just one small stride and he's standing outside.

In the real world once more.

The sky is blue and the grass is green and it's not any different at all, compared to when he's here with Sans. It's all still the same.

He drags himself towards the pond, feet scraping across the dirt, and then he's there. He's there and nothing horrible has happened yet.

He hasn't died either.

The ducks quack happily at his arrival, waddling over to receive their bread. Papyrus smiles at them, at the fluffy yellow ducklings that loyally follow their mother into the fray.

There's a little brown bench just around the corner of the building, shaded from the sun, and when he goes to sit on it he's surprised somebody is already there.

Papyrus doesn't really know Paige. He has seen her around, because she's a friend of Alex and they drag him along everywhere like a mother would their child.

He's fine with that, Papyrus is horrible at social interactions and Alex likes the company, they make a good team.

But Paige is a silent woman, with braided blonde hair and sad gray eyes and soft wrinkles on her face like he hasn't seen on many humans. He knows she has a wife and an ex-husband and three children who now have to live with their grandparents.

He knows she has been here for seven months already.

"I'm sorry." He says and she looks up from her hands, not saying anything.

He sits down next to her, stares at the way the light reflects of the water and is just grateful he's not alone right now.

* * *

That night, when a nurse enters the entertainment room and proclaims somebody is calling for him, Papyrus wonders if Sans has decided they should talk already.

He hasn't thought of what to say yet, of how to fix things, and he wants to refuse but knows he can't.

Luckily for him, it's not Sans calling.

It's Undyne.

"Hey, Papyrus." She says, subdued, and he can't remember the last time she said his name like that. It breaks his heart a little, despite being relieved to hear her voice.

He hadn't noticed he missed it so much until just now.

"Undyne, how are you?" He sits down on the shoddy old couch beside the telephone. It's right next to the nurses station, but they have closed the door to grant him some privacy.

"I'm fine. I'm... more than fine actually, but tell me about yourself first." There is some excitement lacing her voice, but she's obviously holding back.

Papyrus relays a little bit about life within the unit, but not much. It would only serve to dampen her mood, and Undyne sounds so genuinely happy he doesn't want to ruin that for her.

"Ok so, I need to tell you something." She says eventually, voice getting progressively louder. "Something very important."

"What is it?" Papyrus asks when it becomes clear she's waiting for some kind of response.

"I'm getting married."

It's weird, to know you're emotions don't match up with what is happening around you. Dissociation.

"Alphys and me, we're getting married Papyrus!" Undyne tries again, maybe thinking he hadn't heard her the first time and she's screaming now, excited and so eager to share this news with him.

Share this news with one of her best friends.

"That's wonderful, Undyne." He says, happy that his voice sounds nearly as cheerful as hers does, even if he doesn't feel it.

It's not like he doesn't care, he's happy for her. But it doesn't reach, doesn't make him feel as deeply as it once did.

Maybe he's not becoming better.

"When are you going to do it?" He asks, because being invested is the appropriate response and just because you're emotionally dead inside still doesn't mean you get to be a horrible friend.

"Oh, it has to be a while. We're going to wait a few months for summer to come around, at the very least." Undyne sounds so far away through the receiver. Worlds away.

Then, her voice gets fragile again, cautious. "Besides." She says. "We're not doing it without you there. I need you there Papyrus. I need my best man."

The feeling returns then. Not happiness, as Alex had so adamantly reminded him, but a sense that death could wait.

He doesn't need to make it all end today, he can wait until tomorrow.

It is still a far cry from how it should be, he recognizes that now, listening to her exuberant talking about Toriel making the wedding cake and Asgore walking her down the aisle. But it's not what it was before either, and all in all Papyrus would say that's a good thing.

* * *

Friday night finds Papyrus in the garden again, the lawn chair creaking beneath his weight. Marcus is sitting on his right, smoking his last cigarette of the day. He has learned to ration well. Next to him Emma is busy knitting, needles clacking together frantically.

"Such sour faces." Alex comments as they pop their head through the garden door, currently kept open because everybody on the unit has privileges anyway. Saves the nurses a lot of walking to and fro for anyone who wants some fresh air or a smoke.

"You make a good trio like that." They comment, slinging the bag they're carrying over their shoulder. Marcus throws them a nasty look for which Papyrus jabs him in the side.

"Have a good time." Papyrus says, sincerely meaning it. Emma hardly looks up from her needlework.

He thinks back to what Marcus told him, that first weekend he was here. That the people that stayed during the weekend either weren't well enough to go or had nowhere to go to.

Now, Papyrus knew of a third possibility: not wanting to go home.

And between the three of them, they had all of these reasons covered.

The doctors had told him, that if he made sure somebody picked him up from the hospital on Saturday morning and brought him back Sunday evening, it was fine for him to go home, just for the weekend.

And Papyrus had politely declined.

The thought of being there, admits the joyous bustle of a fresh engagement is enough to suffocate him. No thanks.

He simply hadn't told Sans it was offered to him either. problem solved.

"Don't do anything we wouldn't do." Marcus tells Alex as they turn to leave. "And not anything I _would_ do either."

"And remember, never mix pills and alcohol." Emma suddenly says, still not looking up.

"Go along the vein, not over it." Marcus adds.

"Always at the front of the tracks, leaves less of a mess." Emma advices.

"And make sure your rope is the right length." Papyrus supplies.

Alex stares at them, bag strung over their shoulder and hands on their hips. "You're batshit insane, all three of you. Probably it's a good thing you guys are in here."

They all laugh at that, cause there's not much else they can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say how much the comments on this work mean to me. They are literally my life blood these days. Thank you all to the moon and back <3
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

So far, group therapy has been a lot of sitting around in a circle and listening to other people's problems.

Papyrus wouldn't say he doesn't enjoy it, but it's hard to imagine how this will help him.

The chairs are set up in a strategic circle, the space in the middle empty and heavy with silence. Waiting for somebody to speak up about their issues and fill it with emotional baggage. Nobody really wants to go first, obviously.

Doctor Burke, a young blonde man with glasses, sits with one leg draped over the other on the only chair that stands a bit distanced from the others, and desperately tries to prod them into talking from time to time.

Papyrus keeps his mouth shut and listens.

The big take-away here is probably that helping others makes most people feel all warm and glowy inside, and that should make you happy in the long run.

Infallible logic, that.

So they sit and nod along to Emma complaining about her relationship with her mother or Marcus being cynical towards himself and the world.

They explain to Yannik that if he drinks two bottles of vodka each day, his wife is probably right about him having an alcohol problem, as they explain to him each week.

And when the doctor talks they all shut up and listen even more intently, hanging on every word, putting immense value on the opinion of what is, after all, the only clinically sane person in the room.

Papyrus watches, registers all these real people with their real problems, and wonders what he will say, when his turn to share something inevitably comes.

* * *

For once, Papyrus has opted to use the table in the common room, rather than his usual secluded spot next door. It's usually a great place to concentrate, but right now the white noise of the tv and the other patients talking quietly among themselves is a welcome distraction.

Anything not to deal with the unbearable emptiness of the pages in front of him.

"What are you doing?" Paige asks when she comes to sit besides him, looking at her hands instead of his face. Ever since they ran into each other near the pond, she has been seeking out his company more often, though usually not saying a word as she does so.

"I'm..." Papyrus hesitates. He's not doing anything right now, to be honest. "I'm supposed to be writing this thing."

He scribbles another flower in the margins of the paper instead, drawing out the petals in meticulous but unnecessary detail.

"Is it the past thing?" Paige mumbles, some skin at the edge of her fingernails is loose and she tugs at it until it turns red and angry. "We've all had to write those."

Her face is distant, as if she's not here next to him at all. Papyrus nods instead of answering.

His pen hovers over the preprinted lines, the thoughts racing through his head somehow impossible to make it into decent writing.

How is he even supposed to do this?

Write about a past he can barely remember, about just _being_ one day, without having any idea how or when he got there. It hardly seems plausible even to him. Not to mention everything that happened afterwards.

He'll be deemed insane for real if he does.

"Just be honest." Paige tells him, licking idly at the torn skin, now bleeding slow droplets of red. "If you're not honest _it_ will never stop."

Unsure what _it_ even means, Papyrus considers those words while thinking of Sans. Thinking of lying to others and yourself for so long you forget what the truth was in the first place.

So... honesty. It could be worth a shot.

His pen scratches against the paper, a soothing sound. ' _I don't remember being born.'_ he writes, staring at the letters is like feeling something sink in his gut. A distant awareness that he should remember, or maybe he did remember once but forgot.

He breathes through it.

_'But I do remember dying.'_

* * *

"Wow, did you make that?" Alex asks, their voice is contorted in wonder and amazement and it takes Papyrus a solid ten second to realize they are addressing him in the first place. It isn't really a tone he is used to hear directed at himself.

He stares at the clay in his hands.

It is a lot like snow, if less cold to the touch. But it's wet and soft and shapes easily beneath his fingers. It reminded him of home, when Lene pushed it into his hands at the beginning of today's creative therapy. Something comforting that smells like days of ignorance and snowfall.

And now it lays in his cupped palms, delicately molded to resemble a human skull, with eerily deep eye sockets pushed into the moistness and sharp cheekbones.

What might have been the beginnings of a snow skeleton, in better times.

"Dude, that is so freaking awesome." Alex continues fawning over it, bracing both hands against his desk and leaning to look at it from different angles.

Papyrus stares at it too, unsure how it got there. He had been zoning out the entire two hours, mind drifting to days in Snowdin he and Sans shared, before a child came and tore their reality to shreds, a time that hardly feels real anymore.

Did it even happen at all?

Rationally, he knows it did, but it becomes so easy to doubt sometimes.

A few other patients shamble over to see what the commotion is about, the little protective wall of half-empty paint containers Papyrus build around the edges of his spot at the table completely ignored. He doesn't like it when people watch him work.

He never did. He would rather disappear into thin air right about now.

"You should let Lene bake it for you, so you can keep it." Alex comments, just as the woman in questions appears at their side.

"No, I... I don't..." Papyrus tries, feeling the stirrings of something inside him. Pride, a sense of accomplishment at being recognized in his artistic endeavor, even if it was a completely subconscious one.

But also dread, eerie foreboding that clouds his excitement and drags it down into a nasty pit of doubt and avoidance.

Somehow, this little sculpture _is_ him. This tiny clay thing represents something wholly and naturally Papyrus, something that doesn't fit into the careful role he constructed for himself but falls outside it, into the realms of the person he might have used to be, too long ago to recall.

Something that exist only beneath his mask. Like a piece of his soul.

And showing it to other people is never a good thing. He learned that the hard way.

Apparently sensing his distress, Lene delegates most of the other patients back to their own work, turning to Papyrus with a gentle smile.

"If you want to keep it, I can help you use our oven to bake it, so you can glace it next time. You can even paint it, if you want." She suggests. "But if you don't, that's fine too. Just put the clay back in the box when you're done with it."

"If you don't want to keep it, I do." Marcus comments, and she throws him a stern look.

"Papyrus made it, he should decide if he wants to keep it."

He just sits there, staring at the still soft substance in his hands. Slowly, he curls his fists around it.

* * *

There really is no fun in writing ten pages of text – minimum, the Doctor Burke in his head reminds him gravely– about a period in your life you don't even properly remember.

Papyrus makes it a list of words instead, he figures he can add full sentences later. Paige told him it was the thought that counted, anyway.

And it already feels like it's too much as is.

 _Cold_ it says, because if there is one thing he can vividly call to mind it is that. _Hunger_ he adds, then stops.

An acute awareness of the freezing air around him and the emptiness of his own stomach, and that's it. That's all Papyrus can come up with.

More than twenty years on this godforsaken world, not accounting for who knows how many re-does, and this is all he has to show for it? Pathetic.

For a short second he even considers phoning Sans for help, but doesn't.

They never talked about it, they never talked about anything, but Papyrus can hardly imagine his brother would be able to jog his memory in any meaningful way.

He writes a few lines about living in Snowdin, but it sounds lacking and artificially up-beat, a bit like himself.

After a while he builds up the courage to mention the dying too. It's an odd thing to talk about and seeing it written down on paper does little to ease his suspicion that this will probably only make everything worse, but he resists the urge to cross it out again.

Honesty, he reminds himself, gritting his teeth.

Even after writing about every single blurry afterimage of dreams he has had over the years: tiled floors and full syringes and pain, he counts only three pages.

He throws the pen against the wall, watches as it smashes to pieces. Papyrus doesn't have the energy to pick it back up again.

* * *

"Don't you just love the smell of gastric acid in the morning." Marcus comments sarcastically, shoving more dry toasts into his mouth.

Alex rubs against their mouth self-consciously before downing an entire glass of water. Their plate is empty, and Papyrus follows their example.

Nutrient intake is closely monitored on the unit, as is expected of any self-respecting medical facility. Not eating isn't an option in regular circumstances.

But with nobody here to oversee them, he'll take a little short-cut when he can get away with it, and it's hard to break old habits anyhow.

"What has the nurses so busy anyway?" Emma asks between mouthfuls of bland yogurt, making faces at how sour it is. But there isn't any sugar allowed on the unit either.

Not eating isn't an option. Neither is actually enjoying your food.

Marcus side-eyes the door, as if mentioning them would magically summon their presence. "Abe is back."

Alex makes a surprised little noise, almost chocking on their second glass, but Emma's face displays no recognition whatsoever.

"He was here for three months last time, before leaving suddenly with barely any notification some weeks ago, against medical advice, mind you." Alex explains. "Having a brother who sits on the hospital board will grant you that privilege."

Marcus scoffs loudly. "And much good it did him. Overdosed on coke and now he's back. He kept complaining how much he hated this place, don't think it'll suit him any better this time around."

Emma shakes her head, staring down at her spoon. "Some people can't be helped."

"Lost causes." Marcus agrees. He rubs one hand over his tattoos, against the white marks of cuts and little pinprick scars of injections at the inside of his elbow, all faded with time. "The worst punishment is always the one you inflict upon yourself."

"Do you really believe that?" Papyrus asks. His eyes dart to the empty plate in front of him apprehensively, at the table laden with food.

Marcus smiles, wide and dead. "I don't believe in anything anymore."

* * *

The upside of not having Sans around, one of many to be frank, is an endless postponing of the long, decent talk Papyrus knows they should have, lurking somewhere around the corner.

If Sans isn't here they can't talk and if they can't talk, then that's more than fine by him. Yes sir.

The PUUH does not afford him such luxuries.

He's sitting upright on his chair, feels it dig uncomfortably into his spine, and six other people are staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

Maybe they think he's going to say something profound. Papyrus gives them only silence.

"How would you say you are doing?" Doctor Burke asks, going for the diplomatic route presumably. It's a neutral question, that leaves him open to elaborate in any direction he prefers.

Papyrus has to violently fight his urges to not jump straight out the nearest window. That's the only direction he is currently interested in. "Fine." He decides, an equally diplomatic answer.

Fine can mean anything on the PUUH. It can mean 'I am recovering from my self-hate and hopelessness' or 'I'm barely holding on by a thread and honestly I'm surprised you didn't notice sooner'.

Or anything in between.

He can barely see the doctor roll his eyes behind those glasses.

It reminds him of something, someone, though he's unsure who or why. All Papyrus knows is that he does not like doctor Burke at all.

"I feel fine." He says, perhaps a tad defensive. "Better than when I got here anyway."

Most of the other patients nod meekly, but Alex shakes their head with a thin smile. "So you don't want to die anymore?"

"Of course I still do." He blurts. Without his battle body he feels naked, like these people can somehow see straight into his soul. The doctor gives him a disapproving look and notes something down in his case file.

"But that's normal." Papyrus adds quickly.

It shouldn't be normal, he knows. But it is for him. Honesty, right?

"It really shouldn't be." Burke predictably comments.

There is something bitter in his throat and Papyrus feels the sudden urge to defend himself. "Well, that's how it has been all my life."

"That's not living, that's surviving." Yannik comments, shaking his head. "You sound like you're just pretending."

"We're not interested in who you're trying to be. We're interested in who you are." Marcus agrees.

The words sound distant to him, unreal. Something he has been waiting to hear for longer than he can remember, but now that it's here, Papyrus doesn't know what to do with it.

He crosses his arms instead and stares at the wall.

Honesty is overrated, he decides.

* * *

He knows something is wrong when he opens his eyes and the room smells of flowers.

They are dead, decaying, a muted brown instead of their regular vibrant gold, and Papyrus is too tired, too tired to get up and water them.

He's too tired to leave his throne.

It is carved marble and chiseled stone and colored glass, a true piece of art, but it feels as cold and empty as his kingdom, even if he sits on it.

The crown doesn't fit and the edges of his cape drape along the ground, disturbing the yellow petals and they stick to the purple velvet, clinging to it.

The smell is so sweet it is nearly sickening.

And Papyrus isn't sure how he got here, how this happened. Maybe the human broke their promise again or maybe he never left. Maybe it was all just a blissful dream to forget this cruel reality.

Would that make him sad or relieved?

His footfalls are soft, delicate, they barely make a sound as he crosses the room. Something stirs within him, a flash of blue at the edge of his vision and when he turns his head it is already to late.

Sans is dust, gray flecks of nothing. Even he can get too tired eventually.

There is nothing left.

Papyrus wakes up with a gasp and is overwhelmed by a wave of disorientation, for a second not processing what just happened.

He doesn't recognize the flimsy white sheets or the too hard bed. Until he does and he sighs into the silence of the room, feeling like he should cry but not sure how.

He thought he was over this by now.

Alex is gone, probably their side-effects were getting really bad again and they went to the nurses office to complain, a familiar sight for the nightshift. He feels for them.

Papyrus sits up and pulls the blanket around himself, but it feels too much like that cape and he drops it quickly, watching as it bunch around his waist instead.

Flicking on the nightlight, not wanting to sit in the dark because it reminds him too much of death, he looks at the broken pen on his nightstand.

He picks up the pieces, puts them back together. It's a bit like a tiny puzzle, all be it a very easy one, enough to momentarily distract him from the nightmare.

There isn't a price in the world he wouldn't pay to never think of those times again.

His unfinished papers lie on the nightstand too, three pages of lonely words and false contentment.

Papyrus peers at them through the dim light. He doesn't think he ever told anyone about being king, not even after...

Honesty. It could potentially be such a dangerous thing. Especially for him.

He pulls the essay towards himself and starts to write. By the time Alex returns, blinking groggily at his awake state, he has finished all ten required pages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I just read the comments on this thing and cry a little bit (in a good way).
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

Papyrus has been staying at the PUUH for nearly two weeks before he notices the schedule. It has been hanging on the back of the door to the common room all this time, yet he never had been aware of it being there.

Until he sees Jackie changing it.

It's a simple piece of paper with colored squares signifying different activities at different times.

"Oh, we don't really use that anymore." She says in answer to his staring. "I'm just changing it because those from above complain if I don't."

The nurses always talk about the doctors with a tiny edge of resentment that makes Papyrus smile. They sit upstairs in their fancy offices with their elaborate case files, handing out pills, while Jackie and her colleagues are down here dealing with the side effects.

He feels for her.

"Why don't we?" He asks, now standing besides her. Every day starts with purple, breakfast. There is a plethora of other colors, each with its own designated meaning and activity.

"Everybody knows when therapy or meals are. There's no need to check the schedule for that." Jackie withdraws her pen from the paper. Creative therapy will now be at 2 pm instead of 3 pm, but as she said, Papyrus and the other patients already knew that.

They have been informed at breakfast.

"What about these?" He asks. His finger hovers over a pale green square right beneath dinner. 'escorted hiking' it says.

Jackie laughs softly, shaking her head. "Those were mainly used to keep patients occupied in between therapy, to be honest. Boredom isn't very beneficial for your mental state but... the patients usually became a bit... 'complain-y'. So we gave up on them. I'd love to reinstate them if you could get the others on board..."

She walks away with a tired sigh, muttering something to herself. Papyrus did a lot of hiking when he just came to the surface. He liked it, the fresh air and abundance of nature. It made him feel alive, even if just for a bit.

He makes a decision that he might come to regret later.

* * *

"We made a few calls to confirm your... unusual situation." Dr. Miller tells him, shuffling the papers on her desk. Her face looks slightly pained, awkward.

Papyrus could have guessed that would be the case. Humans don't deal well with something breaking down their perceived natural laws. It freaks them out.

You can't just tell somebody that time doesn't exists and not expect them to have a minor breakdown afterwards, at the very least.

He wonders who she talked to (probably Alphys) and what they said.

"Despite it being unprecedented, I do believe we can help you."

Papyrus doesn't know if he doubts it.

* * *

He is allowed to go the hospital cafeteria all alone now, so that's where he meets Sans. His brother is drinking coffee, Sans never drinks coffee, so that says a lot in itself and the mere sight is enough to make Papyrus nauseous.

He wonders if he could get away with just turning around and going back to the unit.

But Sans saw him already, he's waving at him just as though Papyrus wouldn't spot him otherwise, and it's such a stupid thing for him to do.

They sit across from each other as if it's some kind of cross examination, exchanging pleasantries that fall flat. They might as well be talking through the phone, it wouldn't be any difference.

"So how are you doing now?" Sans asks, though he sounds more hesitant than anything. Like he doesn't really want to know the answer.

Papyrus can't blame him.

There's a voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Paige. Honesty, it reminds him.

"I'm not sure, we're working on it." He mumbles, echoing the words Dr. Miller used, unsure what they're supposed to mean.

Sans nods though, so maybe they make sense to him.

"I have a diagnosis now." Papyrus mentions. He fiddles with the straw in his glass, keeps bending it in different ways, anything to keep his hands occupied. He misses his gloves. "It's just a preliminary thing though."

It's just four letters that don't mean anything and yet mean everything.

"PTSD." He looks for a reaction from his brother, any form of recognition.

Sans just nods again, not saying anything.

Papyrus loves him to the end of the world and back, but sometimes he seriously wants to throw Sans off a cliff.

"What now?" His brothers asks eventually, when the silence between them grows so long and taunt you could very well drown in it.

"Now they treat it." Papyrus answers. "And see what else is wrong."

Miller told him not to get his hopes up too soon, that PTSD is as much a symptom as a diagnosis. Misery loves company and so does post-traumatic stress disorder apparently.

"That's good." Sans affirms. He lays his hand on the table palm up and stares at it. Papyrus wants to roll his eyes but holds his brother's hand anyway.

"It's fine, you know." He says, looking at their joined fingers. "Everything is going to be fine."

"It isn't." His brother won't look at him. "It's not fine, Papyrus. And I'm sorry."

"I know you are." He wants to pull back but at the same time he doesn't so he just squeezes softly, trying not to break.

"But hey, if they're going to fix you then this place can't be half bad. PUUHrfect even." Sans jokes, faking a smile that doesn't quite reach his voice and Papyrus sighs.

He does draw his hand back then, but it immediately feels cold so he stuffs it into his lap instead, balls it into a tight little fist. "You can say that because you're not in here." He says, but there's no malice in his tone.

Just exhaustion.

"I wouldn't mind if it means I don't have to go to work anymore." Sans complains good-natured and if Papyrus didn't know any better he'd say it's just like old times.

It isn't though.

"Maybe you should stay then, you lazybones. You're clearly insane." He says and Sans laughs.

Almost like old times.

* * *

"How was your brother." Marcus asks when Papyrus walks back into the recreation room. He sits down and starts breaking apart his puzzle again. It's more fun if he completes the entire thing in one go anyway.

"Very... Sans-like." He decides, starting to divide the pieces in piles of green, blue and pink. One big black flamingo eye stares at him as he begins to reassemble it.

Marcus mumbles something into his plastic cup of tea in answer, using a pencil to scratch into the surface of the table. Papyrus lets him, it's better than when he's trying to do it to his arm and they have to call the nurses.

Marcus makes such a ruckus when he's in isolation.

"Do you have any siblings?" He asks then, because silence is just silence and Papyrus wants noise now. He wants to forget what his brother's laugh sounds like.

"Three, I'm the oldest." Marcus says. He is wearing long sleeves today and Papyrus can't help but wonder why, what he did this time that is so terrible he needs to cover it up.

"Do you talk to them still?" Papyrus doesn't start with the corners because that would be too easy. He's making the puzzle inside out, a challenge.

The man besides him almost chokes in his drink. "You sure are talkative today, what happened?" When he doesn't answer Marcus shrugs. "Nah, we don't talk. We stopped talking when I first got addicted and then we just... didn't pick things back up."

"Do you want to talk to them again?" Papyrus continues. He wonders if something like that could ever happen to him and Sans. That if they keep up not talking long enough they'll just stop one day, and never start again.

He wonders if he would like that.

"It's too late for that." Marcus crushes the plastic beneath his fingers, ignoring the annoying sound that makes. "You can't just walk out of somebodies life one day and then come knocking on their door again twelve years later."

"That's not true. I believe-" Papyrus closes his mouth with an audible snap. The beginning of that sentence so familiar to him, yet so foreign since coming to the surface.

It doesn't belong to him anymore. He's not sure if it ever did.

He shakes his head instead, putting in the last pieces of the puzzle and admiring the finished picture. One glance at the clock confirms his suspicion: 10 minutes, a new record.

"Marcus, how do you feel about hiking?"

* * *

Paige is leaving.

It is weird, unnatural somehow. Papyrus sits on her bed and watches as she packs her things, stuffs the few clothes and belongings she brought into the unit in an old battered suitcase.

Her eyes are wet, but the tear tracks on her face are old, dried up.

With trembling hands, she starts slowly taking the cards down from her board, a colorful collection of well-wishes from family and friends alike.

"Are you going to be ok out there?" Papyrus wonders out loud. Paige looks at him with a mix of gratitude and shame for being able to voice something so precariously balanced between them.

Between them all.

Because every time somebody leaves the PUUH, it is only a question of whether they'll come back, how long they'll manage to hold it out there.

If their return to the hospital will be in a body bag.

"I'll be with my parents, my children, my wife." She says. "I have to be ok."

"No you don't." The world of the unit has always been static to Papyrus somehow, the fact that it never changes a comfort. He doesn't like change at all.

Not anymore.

But now Paige is leaving and everything will be a little bit different and that scares him.

"Funny hearing that from you, master pretender." Paige smiles at him, nearly smirks. He almost regrets opening up to her.

"That's not the same." He says pointedly as she pushes the cards into his hands so she can put away the pins that secured them to the board. Some of them have sparkles on them that fall off and stick to his bones.

"It is." Paige lets her gaze drift across the room, now empty. "We all have our roles to play."

Papyrus holds the cards out for her to take back but she shakes her head. "Keep them. I saw you don't have any in your room, you need them more than I do now."

He thinks of the card signed by everybody, still under his pillow. Now it has become a small stack, a pile of empty words of goodwill, ranging from handmade ones from Frisk to classy store-bought ones from Toriel and everything in between.

One, and only one, is signed by Sans, and that one lays on top.

But Papyrus doesn't want to put them on display for everyone to see, because they are his, solely his, and nothing else in this entire world is his anymore, only them.

It's all become too complicated.

"Thank you." He tells Paige, and her cards get to go on the board.

* * *

Hiking is, as far as mental patients are concerned, not the ideal day activity. It's more of an awkward shambling that they do.

Marcus remarked that they probably look like a pack of starved zombies and Alex laughed. Papyrus had no idea what it meant, so they are going to educate him tonight at what they call 'bloody movie night'.

He might have started something terrible here.

Jackie walks at the front of their little pack, always having to stop and adjust her pace. Sandra brings up the rear to make sure they don't have any strays. The leaves are red and yellow and dead.

Quite a lovely walk, as far as Papyrus is concerned.

"I can't believe you put them up to this." Alex mutters darkly to his right. "I could strangle you right now."

"Fresh air is healthy." Papyrus assures them, grinning so hard it hurts. How long ago was it that he last felt like this?

"Says the one without lungs." Marcus replies. He is wearing maybe five sweaters and a coat, bundled up so thickly that he looks like he might be taking an excursion to the north pole.

Papyrus laughs at him, bright like the afternoon sun. "It's called physical therapy, I believe."

The man doesn't reply, just frowns, and Papyrus breathes deeper, relishes in the realness of it all.

He could keep walking forever and never turn back.

* * *

There is a golden ratio for attempting to commit suicide: It has to look like an accident. Your family shouldn't be the ones to find you. And, perhaps most importantly, it should kill you.

Screw up one of these three and you screw it all up.

Eli fucked up the last part, and that's why he's here now.

His eyes are cold and angry and he stares at them all as if this is somehow their fault, they're the reason he's in here.

"I'm not fucking insane like them." He tells the nurses, who nod their heads complacently and offer him some more pills.

He grips the edges of his wheelchair, knuckles turning white.

Papyrus watches him and for the first time in a decent while, wonders if he could somehow help. Make something better.

* * *

He's having what they call, in local PUUH dialect, 'a shitty day'. Or as the professionals call it: a relapse.

He dreamt of death, of Undyne's dust staining his fingers. It felt like the first time, every time. No matter how many times it had actually been. No matter how sure he was that she'd come back.

It never became less horrible.

And now he is sorting the beads they should be using to make art, arranging them according to color, size and approximate shininess. Creating some semblance of order in the chaos.

Usually, it would bring him comfort.

Now, he wants to throw the entire jar through the window instead.

Eli has wheeled himself over to the corner of the room in a form of silent protest, still adamant on not belonging in what he has oh so subtly dubbed 'the loony bin'.

Marcus is idly flicking beads at Alex's head to annoy them. He made a valiant effort at stringing them together when therapy started, but years of substance abuse has ruined his fine motor skill beyond believe and he quickly grew bored of the hopeless effort.

Emma is trying not to cry and failing horribly at it. Her manic episode has traded itself in for a depressive one, as is to be expected, and the fallout is quite the kicker.

Overall, they are just one giant mess.

Lene sits at the front of the room, looking over them like a shepherd watching their hopeless sheep go stray. She sighs and takes some notes for the nurses to deal with later.

They can't all be good days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How come you people manage to leave such heart-warming, eloquent comments? You're amazing, really.
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

"How was it?" Papyrus asks, when Alex shuffles into the room with a vacant look on their face. They sink down into the chair opposite him, lay their trembling hands on the table. Papyrus holds them still for them.

"Unreal." They mumble, and there are tears in their dark eyes, hiding just beneath the surface. "He was there, Papyrus."

"I know." He says, stroking along the inside of their palm. He's not sure if it helps, skeletons don't have a lot of nerve endings, but he saw Toriel do it when Frisk had a nightmare once.

"Did you... Did you see him?" He feels out of his depth, swimming in a speeding current. This is something he has no experience with, something he doesn't know how to solve.

He would give anything just to know how.

"Not yet. We won't see him until the actual trial but-" They break up to cough, or sob, or maybe choke on despair. Papyrus patiently waits for Alex to continue. "There were others. Others he... Like me."

Their head drops to the table, shoulders shaking. "I was just a kid, he didn't have the fucking right-" It tampers off into inaudible sounds and Papyrus strokes their hair, utterly at a loss.

He doesn't know what to do. How to somehow fix this.

Something brews in his gut, something strange and tight that might be rage, and Papyrus knows for sure there's one human on this world he wouldn't mind killing.

* * *

If he thought it was bad in writing, words are immeasurably worse.

It feels so long ago, so far away. Sometimes it's hard for Papyrus to be sure it wasn't a dream, one long string of nightmares, each more terrible than the one before it.

And now more than ever, comfortable, safe, sitting across from serious looking humans with tiny frowns and pens that hover above paper. Waiting to write their verdict.

It is hard to tell them.

He gets through it, in spurts and silences. Waiting for them to draw the line, tell him that this is something they simply wouldn't believe. But they just nod and listen.

And so Papyrus tells them. All about being king or being dead or being anything but himself. Tells them about the lies and the endurance. Even tells them about what little he can remember of what came before that.

It's easier when he pretends it's not them he's talking to, but Sans. He knows that is something yet to come, a battle yet to be fought, and Sans would never be so quiet, so accepting, anyway.

But it's an excellent practice run.

And when he's done, he feels lighter. A lot like what he felt when he took off his battle body for the first time.

A weight that is lifted of his shoulders, a freedom, but also a vulnerability, weakness. It has been forever since he showed somebody so much of himself. His true self, that is.

And right now Papyrus is just waiting for it to come around and bite him in the proverbial ass.

* * *

Marcus comes to him while he's hiding out in the garden. There's a temporary patient inside who is either suffering from extreme paranoia or actually being chased by the police, and while the nurses figure out which of the two it is, Papyrus prefers to seek out the relative calm outside has to offer.

There are distant sounds of cars speeding down streets, vague remnants of real life outside these walls. They sound just far away enough to be comforting, rather than frightening.

"How did your talk with the doctor go?" Marcus asks him, grabbing one of his cigarette and lighting it.

"I'm not sure." Papyrus answers honestly. He's trying to make it a habit now, but it's easy with them, his fellow-clients. He knows it will be harder outside, with his friends. "I think we're getting somewhere."

Not that he has the slightest idea where exactly, but somewhere at least.

Marcus nods, blowing smokey circles into the nearly freezing air. His jacket is hanging open, the dark lines of his tattoos just visible above the collar, and Papyrus needs to restrain himself from telling him to zip it up before he gets too cold.

"How was yours?" He says instead, because inquiring into each others recovery seems to be good PUUH etiquette.

Either that, or it's one of the most rude things you can do, depending on their condition. Papyrus decides to risk it.

"Good." Marcus hums, taking another drag. "Bad." He says then, and Papyrus nods, because those two terms can go side-by-side easily within their unit.

"It's a fucking pain, answering all those questions I don't have an answer to." He rubs his face, frowns into the distance. "Alex told you right?"

Papyrus looks away. If he's correct, this is called 'snitching' in human language, and it's a very impolite thing to do. Then again... Honesty. "They mentioned something about... schizophrenia. I don't know what that means."

He adds the last part as an assurance almost, an affirmation that Marcus can still keep his secrets. But the man bumps an elbow against him.

"It means I wake up in a bed I don't recognize, next to some woman I can't remember ever meeting. It means I go out to the store and then come home to my family in a frenzy because I have been gone for three days." His mouth curls unpleasantly, bitterly. "It means I'm a freak."

Papyrus doesn't answer cause anything he would say now would be lacking anyway, it would be empty and fake. He just bumps back, softly.

"I didn't know what caused it, I was so scared I-" He breathes, heavily. "I did the booze and the drugs because then at least I knew why I always forgot."

The sky gets darker, cloudier, and the first few drops of water break apart on the leaves. Papyrus sticks out a hand to catch the droplets.

"It's nothing like in the movies." Marcus adds, and he isn't sure what that means either.

The rain starts to fall heavier, soaks into their clothes, but they don't get inside until Jackie comes to get them.

* * *

"Papyrus, what's up? I wasn't supposed to come over today, was I?" Sans sounds confused, alarmed.

Papyrus wonders what his brother was doing before he called, if he interrupted something important. It's funny to realize the world still continues on as normal without him there.

The world doesn't need him at all. Not any more than it did back underground, anyway. Everything keeps turning.

"No, I just... called because I needed to ask you something important." He grasps the phone tightly, a death grip. Part of him just wants to hang up and forget about everything.

But he has forgotten enough already.

"Sure, ask away, bro." There isn't any ease in his voice, no trace of casual conversation. Either Sans already knows what he's going to ask, or he doesn't want to talk to him at all to begin with. Papyrus can't tell which would be worse.

"It's about before..." He says, legs bouncing up and down restlessly, unable to keep them still.

"Pap, I already told you we need to talk about this whe-" Sans starts, but Papyrus cuts him off.

"No, I mean before before. Before Snowdin, Sans."

"Oh." It is a soft noise, a little exhalation of wonder. Equal parts disbelief and abatement.

They're silent for so long, Papyrus starts to wonder if Sans hung up on him.

"There's nothing, Papyrus. There's nothing before Snowdin." And maybe it means Sans doesn't remember either or he just doesn't want to tell him, or maybe there really was nothing

Maybe they really just _were_ someday.

"Sans, you can't lie to me now." His voice is flat, tired. He needs the truth. Needs it more than he has ever needed anything in his entire life.

"I know." His brother sighs, and it sounds sincere enough for now.

* * *

Asgore bought him a puzzle. It's a strangely thoughtful thing for him to do, to somehow have remembered Papyrus mentioning everything was fine in here, except maybe he was a tad bored. He has solved the flamingo puzzle as many times as he has died now, and no goading of Marcus could convince him to give it another go.

And then here it is.

It has the same amount of pieces, fifty thousand little shards of color to be fitted together into a perfect little picture, but there are two sides to it, so it offers twice the amount of fun. Or so the box proudly declares.

Flowers. One garden in yellow and purple, one in red and blue. It seems symbolic somehow, though Papyrus isn't sure why.

All he knows is that he can keep himself busy again, sitting at his little table and ignoring the world.

He reminds himself to write Asgore a little 'thank you' note as soon as he can.

* * *

When he is done with it for the first time, a cacophony of colors to look down upon, he closes the box and carries it over to the shelves.

The shelves that are an absolute mess.

It strikes Papyrus as odd, how he never noticed that before. The puzzles and board games are lying scattered and disorganized, balanced so precariously they could collapse at any given moment. He has spend the majority of his hospitalization in this room, made it his personal spot.

But he didn't see until just now.

The Great Papyrus used to never be one to ignore a mess.

Jackie enters the room two hours later and finds him on his knees, methodically sorting the puzzles according to size and scrutinizing each one to check for missing pieces.

She laughs and bows down besides him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning." Papyrus says, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. It should be, for him. He wants order in his chaos.

Method to his madness.

"You should have told me, I don't mind helping." Jackie starts taking the boxes he already sorted and putting them back on the shelves, careful to keep the order intact. "This is the nurses job anyway, but we get so swamped..."

"I don't mind doing it alone." He says quickly, giving her a convenient excuse to get back to her work, but Jackie shakes her head and smiles.

"Maybe, but it will be faster this way. Easier too." Her nails are short, chipped a little bit. "You should ask for help more often."

Papyrus knows she's not talking about the puzzles anymore.

"I don't want to inconvenience anyone." It sounds like a stupid excuse even as he says it, lame, like something a child would say. And oh, what would Sans think of that.

"You're not. In fact, everyone _wants_ to help you." Jackie has stopped putting the boxes back, but Papyrus works on diligently, not looking at her. "But they can't if you don't open up first."

He is silent, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, trying not to listen.

"Don't you trust them?"

It hurts, he drops the puzzle he was holding with an sudden clatter, feeling his hands clenching at the words. "Of course I do!" It still sounds fake.

"How are they supposed to know that if you don't tell them anything? You're not making them worry less by locking them out, Papyrus. You're just making it harder for them and yourself."

She says it so calmly, simple facts that everyone is aware of, and Papyrus is the oblivious one here. The one who hasn't quite caught up.

The one who is at fault.

His hands are shaking, Jackie touches his shoulder and he wants to push her away, but doesn't. He wants this to stop.

"You need to trust him." Her eyes are soft, light blue like the surface sky in summer but somehow hard as well. Telling him something he doesn't dare recognize.

He can't just blame Sans for everything that happened anymore. No matter how much he wishes it were that easy.

* * *

He doesn't sleep, no surprises there. He lies on bed and thinks about everything and nothing.

From the first cold Snowdin nights he remembers up until coming to the surface and telling Sans that he's not ok, he is tired and unhappy and wants to die.

How long has he been saying to himself it has all been for his brother's sake, his friend's sake. Telling them would make them unhappy, telling them would bring them pain, and it's better for him to just suffer alone in silence, carry that burden and not tell anyone.

Such an easy thing to convince himself of, such a simple virtue to live and die for.

Years of telling himself it was all worth it, because he kept them oblivious and save and didn't hurt anyone.

Now Papyrus has to wonder if he has been lying to himself as much as to them all along.

* * *

There's a lot of ambient sounds on the unit, most of them have faded away to the background ages ago. Papyrus is so used to them they're nothing but background noises.

This isn't.

A sudden crash disturbs the relative silence of their room. Papyrus turns and rolls over, not asleep as always but maybe comfortably drowsy. Alex's bed stands empty in the other corner of the room.

Almost, he turns back without a second thought, until the realization sinks in.

Papyrus is on his knees in a second, blankets still half-tangled between his legs. Alex lies on the ground, eyes wide open, rolled back and there's too much white visible, none of that comforting brown he usually sees there.

Their body convulses, little shocks that shake their frame and Papyrus doesn't dare touch them, stares at the way their head slams into the ground over and over again, making choking sounds.

And after all these years it is the most frightening thing Papyrus has ever seen.

For a moment only this image fills his vision, then reality comes crashing back like a wave against his very soul and he's up, almost slipping on the tiles but not caring how much noise he makes.

He throws the door open so forcefully it bangs again the wall, maybe dents it, but Papyrus doesn't care, mind filled with a litany of pure panic.

He can't care about anything else anymore.

The nurses of the night shift rush over to their room in a flurry and he keeps standing in the hallway, the harsh light of fluorescent tubes glaring down upon him.

Part of him wants to go back, go help, do anything besides being uselessly there, frozen to the spot. Always useless, always. But he doesn't want to, couldn't stand the sight of Alex on the floor in such a state a second time.

He's not sure how long it lasts, maybe just a few minutes or possibly hours, but then there's someone in front of him and it's almost more than Papyrus can bare, to pull out of his own thoughts and look at them.

Jackie lays one hand on his shoulder, carefully, as if she's approaching a scared animal. Her face is slightly red, but her shoulders seem relaxed. She tries to smile but it's obviously hard, worn out.

"Are you ok?" She asks carefully and Papyrus thinks that's a stupid question. He's not the one who just suffered a seizure. "It must have been a bit of a shock, but I assure you Alex is fine now. It's just... side effects."

Papyrus doesn't mention that they should probably change Alex's medication then.

"I'm fine." He says. "Just... I didn't know how to help." It comes out more desperate sounding than he meant, the fragility in his voice something he loathes.

He wishes he could just squeeze it out.

"You helped." Jackie assures him. "Getting us was the best course of action."

Papyrus shakes his head as she starts leading them back to the room. "No, I mean... I wish I could have really helped."

"You can't help others if you can't help yourself." Jackie comments cryptically.

Papyrus isn't sure whether to believe her or not.

* * *

"So, are you...?" He whispers into the darkness, staring at the ceiling.

He hears Alex shift and sigh from their end of the room. "Alive." Their voice sounds exhausted. "And I'm nauseous."

Papyrus nods, even if his roommate can't see, and pulls the blanket up to his chin, suddenly cold.

"I'm sorry for worrying you." Alex mumbles, almost as brittle as he feels.

"That's okay, I wasn't sleeping anyway." He answers automatically. "At least it livened up my night."

There's a soft giggling from the other bed and Papyrus rolls to face the wall again, at least somewhat reassured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we're this far in the story, I guess I should address the few people who have been asking me the reason for writing this, or where it's going.
> 
> Well, besides obviously being vent writing, as always, I'd say this is a character study. The Papyrus I write isn't always very accurate to Canon!Pap, so I guess I kind of want to see what makes him tic, specifically once reaching the surface. Most people seem to imagine Pap taking to surface life like a fish to water, but I don't see it that way.
> 
> For me, Papyrus has been living lies his entire life, only holding out because of the persona he uses and the distance that allows him, the predictability of the timelines and the assuring knowledge nothing is permanent. On the surface, that all changes. Truly the worst ending for him, and it just becomes to much.
> 
> I wanted to explore that theory, but also offer a story about recovery, I do quite some awful shit to our favorite skeleton in my stories, and I'm a sucker for bittersweet or even truly bad endings. But in this case, I think he deserves a break. Recovery is possible, but it's a difficult road full of potholes.
> 
> (Also, while not the main point, I do want to address the warped image I've noticed many fanworks (and a lot of fiction in general) have of mental hospitals. The majority of this is based on real event and people, with names and details changed to ensure privacy of course.)
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	8. Chapter 8

Papyrus has no nerve endings, cold or heat does not affect him, but even he can feel the temperature notably drop as soon as Eli enters the room.

The truth is, nobody _really_ wants to be here, in the PUUH. Nobody likes to admit they need help at something so simple as living, surviving. A task that is fundamental to your existence, the basis of your being.

If you manage to screw even that up, what use are you?

But most of them have resigned to their faith, go along with everything because the alternative is addiction or self-harm or death, any type of self-medicating you prefer to partake in, only as not to deal with reality.

They don't want to be here, but at the end of the day they are and they thrive, they get better. Maybe. Hopefully.

Eli does not want to be here, period. And he lets anybody who asks know (and those who don't ask as well for that matter).

He yells and he cries and if a nurse is foolish enough to come close enough he'll bite. He probably would kick too, had his legs still worked.

But the car crash that was his failed suicide attempt made that impossible.

Papyrus hears him often, because he passes solitary confinement when he goes to his room, he has become used to the sound of thumping against the heavy metal door, the rhythmic thuds of Eli banging his wheelchair against it over and over again.

Sometimes he stop, and hesitates. One time he talked, and while the noise stopped, there was no answer.

It reminds him a bit of the stories Sans told about the door to the ruins.

And now as they sit down to dinner, Papyrus has managed to get away with only half-filling his plate, the broken man wheels himself back in, anger brewing on his face.

Suddenly you could hear a needle hit the tile walls, should one fall. The quiet before the storm, waiting with bathed breathe to be broken.

Eli doesn't say anything.

Conversation starts up again haltingly, almost shyly so. Papyrus isn't listening, observing the human who positioned himself across from him, bumping into the table a few times before managing to get it right.

He is young, younger than Papyrus thought him to be from the few times he saw him. In fact, he doubts Eli has reached adulthood by human standards. He has deep eyes, a dark blue like the ocean Papyrus once visited, but they dart around in distrust.

They lock onto him suddenly, fiercely. "What are you looking at?"

"You." Papyrus answers honestly, and Eli seems taken back by his honesty.

He doesn't say anything more, pushing his mouth into a thin, displeased line and diverting his attention to the plate a nurse just put in front of him instead.

Papyrus smiles, more at himself than anyone else, and finishes off the dry, tasteless pasta he picked for himself.

* * *

It is going to be the last warm day in a while, most trees have no leaves left to shed, stark branches against a fading sky, and it's the ground that has taken their colors now, an array of orange and red and brown, slowly rotting away beneath human feet.

Emma is in the throes of mania again, agitated and jumpy, unable to concentrate. She paces from the window to the wall to the counter to the couch again, almost like she needs to empty her bladder. Alex complains about how distracting it is, and she mumbles an apology to the ceiling.

Her eyes are empty, staring out the window, at the last rays of sun outside.

"Do you want to go to the garden?" Papyrus asks, and she nods, wringing her hands in front of her.

They pace the length of their little patch of grass, twenty steps to the brick wall that separates them from the sane world and twenty back.

Emma stops and picks up leaves at odd intervals, ones that have managed to retain a fair amount of color. She inspects them closely, and if she approves, hands them over to Papyrus for save-keeping. The ones that fail the test get discarded onto the ground again.

"What does it feel like to want to die?" She asks suddenly, looking at him with unadulterated attention and he shrugs.

"It feels like..." He stops. He knows what it feels like to die, has memorized it so thoroughly his nightmares can recreate it in aching detail. But wanting to die is something completely different.

Something he has been feeling for so long it takes him a few moments to recall, dig it from the depths of his soul.

"It feels like the most important person you know has died." He manages, staring at the wet leaves stuck to his boots. "It's a lot like grief, paralyzing."

She nods at him, squatting to inspect the ground.

"It is like everybody you know is already dead and you're only living on the outside anymore. On the inside it's gone, everything is gone. And over time it convinces you this is all there ever was, all there ever will be. Only this overwhelming grief that makes it too hard to go on..."

She looks at him, pushes a leaf into his hand but doesn't let go, holds it instead.

"I'm happy I've never felt like that." Emma mumbles, before letting go and resuming her pacing. "Something so inescapable."

"Well, it's...it's not that bad, you get used to it after a while." Papyrus doesn't follow her anymore, watching her uneven strides from his perch on the porch.

"The fact that you can get used to something so horrible in the first place is even worse." She protests and he feels like he has to agree with her.

Papyrus wishes it weren't so easy to hate himself.

Emma stops next to him, takes the leaves and counts them, seemingly satisfied somehow. "Do you feel like that now?"

Lights are being turned on inside, the sky is a striking purple with fluffy white clouds, the sun barely even there anymore. Faint lights may be distant stars or they may be human planes, Papyrus has to squint at them to see if they're moving if he wants to find out.

It is a lovely evening.

"No." He says, smiling. "Not right now."

* * *

Emma offers the leaves to Papyrus, asks him to take some. He does, though it eludes him what he is supposed to do with them.

When he walks with her to her room, he sees.

She has taped them to the wall, the door, against the window. Flowers too, colors and variations which Papyrus knows do not originate from the unit's garden. He wonders who gave them to her.

When he's back in his own room, he looks at his cork board, the cards from strangers he has put up there to fill the depressing emptiness.

He takes them down, puts them in the drawer so he can offer them back to Paige should they ever meet again, and hangs up the leaves instead.

And his own cards, the words of love from his friends, remain beneath the pillow a while longer.

* * *

He has finished the other side of Asgore's puzzle too, and it's still early so he turns it over and starts again, blue and red, his favorite colors.

Marcus is in one of his moods again, scratching his arms and bouncing up and down on the chair across from him, spouting random facts.

"The correct scientific name for a suicide attempt is 'tentamen suicidii'." He tells Papyrus, picking at his scars.

"You're going to make them worse." He reproaches half-heartedly, not looking up from his puzzle. He knows nothing he will say can help right now.

"Can't really do a worse job than they did." Marcus scoffs, laughing for some reason.

Papyrus frown, he remembers that story. For hours they made Marcus wait at the ER, with just some old towels to stop the bleeding. The psych complained when he found out and what did they say?

"Somebody who does such a thing to themselves can't really expect us to take immediate care of them."

"Never mind the fact that mental illnesses are still illnesses." Marcus had sighed, when relaying the story to Papyrus, pointing out how jagged the sutures were, done hurriedly by some medical assistant that rather be anywhere else but there. "With a much higher mortality rate than most other conditions, mind you."

* * *

Papyrus hasn't slept in days, nothing unusual there. He is accustomed to sleepless nights, prefers them to whatever visions haunt him in his dreams. Usually, the even breathing of his sleeping roommate would lull him into a comfortable state of disconnection. Not asleep, but barely awake anymore.

That is, if Alex would still be able to sleep.

The amount of pills you take determines your status on the PUUH. The more pills you are prescribed, the more attention the professionals give you and the more serious your ailment is considered.

Alex's status is legendary.

He hears them sobbing in the darkness of their room, tossing and turning restlessly.

"Are you alright?" He whispers, not sure if they even want to talk about it, but feeling more useless if he doesn't try.

They don't answer for the longest time, exhaling shakily and trying to draw in air, coughing it out again. Papyrus has just started to wonder if maybe he should go alert the night shift after all, when they start talking.

"It just fucking sucks... I'm so tired of feeling like this." They roll over to their side and just like that they're looking at each other over the gap between their beds, two awake mental patients in the middle of the night.

The set-up for a joke without punchline.

"You can't win, you know?" They ask, wiping tears from their cheeks.

"Can't win what?" Papyrus prompts, because if Alex is talking they're not crying and he'll take the sound of their voice over the sound of their pain any day.

"Wanting to die." They clarify. "You can't win. If you don't kill yourself you're weak, too scared to end it. You're a faker, a complainer who is too dumb to actually go through with anything and just cries for attention. But if you do kill yourself you're a coward, taking the easy way out, hurting everybody who loves you. Not taking the chance of recovery."

They cough again and spit a bit of bile into the bucket next to their nightstand. Side effects, as always. "No matter what you do, you always lose."

Papyrus blinks against the darkness overtaking his vision, tries to see Alex through the absence of light.

"Maybe it's not about dying, then." He says. "Maybe it's about living despite all that."

There is no response, just a slow breathing, and he wonders if they fell asleep, when they giggle.

"Maybe it is. Is that what you're doing then?" Alex mumbles, burying deeper beneath the blankets against the shaking of their body.

"It's a work in progress." Papyrus confides, and they laugh again, fragile and broken, but a laugh none the less.

It's good enough for Papyrus at least.

* * *

He makes another painting in art therapy, on the smallest size canvas.

It is supposed to look like Snowdin, the streets he spent most of his life on, but it is hard to tell how accurate it is. He can hardly remember what the town looked like anymore.

Maybe that's a relief, or a pity. Time will tell.

Alphys comes by, all nervous gestures and awkward glances. Papyrus gives it to her, an engagement present he says, and she smiles in a way that reminds them of the old days.

She brought him his notebook, the one nobody is supposed to know about, full of puzzles and horoscopes and some memories maybe better off burned and he doesn't ask why she does know. Because of course she does.

He is grateful and she is relieved he's not angry and Papyrus is simply glad Sans didn't come today.

* * *

Lene is sick, just the flu as they are all quickly assured, so Sandra had to dig something up from the depths of the art room to keep them occupied in the meantime.

One hour and 37 folded paper cranes later, she must seriously be regretting that decision.

The most recent one pretty much fits on the tip of his finger, and Papyrus is aiming to make the next one half as small as that, if he can.

"You're pretty good at that." Marcus remarks, tossing a m&m at Alex, who attempts (and fails) to catch it in their mouth.

"Yes." Papyrus responds proudly. Detail work is his specialty, after all. "Just about 960 more to go."

"And what then?" Jackie, who just entered the room, asks while pulling up a chair to sit at their table. "I'm not interrupting some important conversation, am I?" She quickly supplies, but Alex laughs at the remark.

"We never have important conversations." They say, offering the bag of candy to their favorite nurse. "Care for a placebo?"

"A placebo?" She takes a handful without waiting for an answer.

"Jup, yellow for a better mood, blue to improve sleep." Alex pulls out a dark brown one. "And these..."

"Bowel movement." Marcus jokes, and Jackie frowns around the candy already in her mouth.

"There." Papyrus says softly, balancing yet another origami crane on the desk.

"So what are these for again?" Jackie asks, obviously in an effort to change the topic, gesturing at his rather impressive assortment.

"There's this old Japanese myth that if you manage to fold a thousand paper cranes, you're allowed a wish." Marcus explains, smirking. "What you gonna wish for, Pap?"

"Probably world peace or something equally cheesy." Alex laughs before he can answer. "A skeleton on a mission."

Papyrus ignores them and starts on the next crane, bigger again now. Variety is the spice of life. "Sometimes I don't know why I even talk to you guys..."

"Isn't there something useful you're supposed to be doing?" Jackie frowns at them in mock disappointment, but the two just shrug her off.

"We _are_ doing something, something very important." Marcus assures her. "We're supervising."

"Yes, very important world peace business." Alex adds, hardly able to contain their laughter, and Jackie rolls her eyes at them as she gets up to see to the other patients again.

* * *

The sound has become so familiar, metal against metal, it's almost too easy to not hear it anymore.

Papyrus stands in front of the door to solitary and rests his palm against it, feels the impact of Eli's wheelchair colliding with the frame reverberate through his bones.

Over and over and over...

He wonders if Eli is lonely.

"Hey, I'm..." The thuds stop, there is only silence. Papyrus waits, gathers his thoughts. It is hard to make contact with somebody that so voluntarily draws up walls around themselves.

Was it this hard for Sans too, with him?

"I'm going to the shop, I was just wondering if there was anything you wanted?"

No reply, no return of the thumping either. Papyrus suddenly feels really insufficient.

He can still see that boy so easily in front of him, small or shrunken, body broken by an impact that should have killed him. That he wanted to kill him. Eyes full of weariness towards the world and all its people.

Wishing he was dead.

He asked Alex and they confirmed. If Eli were one of monsterkind, he'd still be wearing a striped shirt.

"Ok, that's fine, just... ask me if you need something. I want to help." Papyrus mumbles, just loud enough so he's sure the other can hear him.

He's not stupid. He knows the reason he didn't like looking at Eli is because it reminded him too much of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again so many lovely comments, THANK YOU!
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

It's weird to be back home, after more than a month away. It feels a lot like learning to walk again in the wake of being bedridden for too long. A familiar territory, but one that requires you to trod carefully none-the-less, lest you break a leg.

Or a spine.

That's how they treat him anyway, like he could fall apart beneath their fingertips without warning, fragile glass that needs to be precariously handled.

Papyrus wants to yell at them but doesn't.

They're all so different now, worlds from what they used to be.

Sans barely talks to him, tiptoeing around the gap between them, maybe he hopes ignoring it will make it go away by itself. They both know better. His jokes sound emptier than usual and it reminds Papyrus of back underground, of the emotional shield his brother pulls up around himself in order not to break.

But they're already broken.

Toriel tries to be comforting, but can't. Papyrus sees it in her eyes, the sadness whenever she looks at him. You're not much of a guardian if you can't even protect people from themselves. He asked her if he could help cook, but saw the way she tensed when he reached for a knife. As if he would pick it up and start at himself right then and there.

He wanted too, for a glaring instant, but he never would.

Alphys looks more nervous than ever, and Papyrus is simply surprised she doesn't disappear. She used to do that, sometimes. Withdraw both physically and mentally because she could not face the world. But she has grown since they came to the surface, perhaps more than any of them. She is there when he needs her and there when he doesn't, you would think the hovering gets on his nerves and it does. But she doesn't stop and Papyrus doesn't ask her to.

Is grateful she's decided to stay this time.

And then there's Undyne.

If he expected any of them to be an unchanging factor in his existence, the one thing he could relay on at all times, it would be her.

She is a storm. She is like stone, unyielding, stabilizing, it carries your weight. Like water, she adapts, calm on the surface but ready to uproot you any second if she sees it fit.

And so it breaks his heart a little bit, when he first comes home, and she pulls out the kitchen chair for him to sit on.

It's not the gesture that hurts him, or the intention behind it, but the knowledge that in her eyes too, he is not the same anymore, and likely never will be. He is now something that needs to be fixed, something that needs to be protected.

Something unpredictable and dangerous. Something Papyrus never wanted to be.

So in the end, he spends the weekend mostly around Frisk.

The human hasn't changed a bit. They are determination incarnate, all crooked grins and scraped knees and broken skin. They want something and get that something no matter what it is and their stubbornness teeters on the dangerous sometimes, but he feels safe when with them.

Frisk would never let anyone hurt Papyrus, won't let him hurt himself either. But they ask his help when they can't reach something, need his opinion and want him to answer in honesty, and Papyrus feels useful.

Feels like he can finally take care of someone, instead of always being taken care of.

* * *

It's barely forty-eight hours and at the end of it he is completely knackered. Things have changed yet somehow they haven't and one weekend really isn't enough to plan an entire wedding, but god forbid anyone that tries to keep Papyrus from trying.

There's venues to see and food to try and flowers to choose. Undyne drags him along for all of it, and besides her asking him every five minutes if he's alright, if he needs a break, if he's sure it's not too much too soon, he ends up really enjoying himself.

Asgore advices them and they choose roses in a startling golden color the same yellow as Alphys' eyes and Undyne adores them.

Before he knows it Papyrus is standing on the porch, Frisk is holding his hand as if they don't really want to let go, biting their lip, and Sans pulls him into an embrace, looking him in the eyes probably for the first time in two days.

"You'll be back before you know it." His brother says, and Papyrus is unsure whether Sans is comforting him or himself or maybe just going through the motions.

They've always been excellent at that.

"There's always next weekend anyway." He answers, and finds himself actually looking forward to it.

* * *

He is about halfway with his collection of paper cranes now. They have long overflowed the edges of his nightstand, taking residence besides Alex's bed as well, and now the side table of the recreation room has become their new domain.

Papyrus is also fairly sure Marcus has abducted a few of them.

The man in question sits across from him, idly playing with one of the larger origami birds.

"I think they're just scared they'll do something wrong." Papyrus finishes his relay of the weekend's events. Marcus hadn't particularly asked to hear them, but it was quiet and Papyrus wanted to fill the silence.

Talking feels a lot more comfortable again now than it has in a long time.

"You think too much." Marcus mumbles, balancing one of the cranes atop another. "Have you tried actually talking to them about it instead?"

"I never talk with anyone about anything." Papyrus echoes his psychologist, the words Sans had long accused him of too. Honesty, remember?

Marcus watches his construction topple beneath his trembling fingers and abandons it, staring at his hands as he folds a bird of his own instead. "You know that's exactly your problem, right?"

"So I've been told. You call it a problem, I call it a solution." Papyrus replies, getting swiftly kicked in the leg for his dismissive attitude. "Ouch-"

"I thought you were here to find better solutions..." Marcus tries kicking him again but Papyrus quickly withdraws his legs, tugging them beneath the chair instead.

He doesn't immediately answer, concentrating on the folds he's making. He prefers puzzling, but it'd be stupid to stop before he got to a thousand.

"I guess I just want at least some people to... not worry about me all the time. At least one person who thinks this isn't such a big deal at all." He says after a while. "Just one person who would think it strange if I really did... kill myself."

Years of being like this, and this is the first time Papyrus said those words out loud. They taste bitter and raw, like marrow.

"Then maybe you should talk about _that_ , don't you." Marcus implores with a little grin. He attempted to make a paper crane of his own, but it looks misshapen and wrong.

Papyrus thinks it looks cute.

"Who knows, maybe I should." He answers cryptically. 600 Origami birds.

* * *

Autism.

Papyrus has never heard this word before, hadn't known it existed.

Now he's sitting on an itchy stair in some stuffed room and is being told this might be the answer to all his problems. Or the rationalization of them, at least.

"How do you feel, hearing this?" Doctor Burke asks strategically, pen poised over his notebook and waiting for some kind of reaction. Observing him.

It makes Papyrus nervous, unsure. He feels like he's being tested for something without being told all the rules.

It reminds him-

"Actually, I'm rather ok with it." He answers honestly, trying to shake the evocative sensation. Concentrating on the here and now instead.

The physician puts his pen to the paper, starts to write then stops, scribbles through the little he wrote down. "You what?"

Maybe this wasn't the predicted way of acknowledging such a diagnosis.

"It doesn't change anything for me personally. But having some kind of insight might actually help me understand why I don't understand myself." Papyrus tries to explain. "I've been like this for-"

For how long has he been like this. Months, he wants to say. But it's probably been years.

"Forever." He decides. "I've been like this forever."

Burke nods, starts writing at last, though he's still frowning deep. Maybe it's different for humans, more difficult to accept they do not fit the neat little labels they make for themselves and others.

They like it so simple. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl and that's the end of it. Papyrus knows the world doesn't work that way.

Frisk knew too, and look where it got them in the end.

"This is not something that can be cured. Not something that needs to be cured, for that matter. But we can help you learn to deal with it better." Burke says.

Papyrus agrees. He is ready to start dealing with things.

* * *

He's taking a break from reading because it makes his head hurt when Alex walks in.

"What are you brooding about?" They asks, presumably in reaction to the way Papyrus is cradling his face in both hands.

"I don't brood, I never brood." He responses quickly. "Sans is the one who broods."

"I'm sure he is." Alex laughs. "What are you doing then?"

"I'm thinking." He closes the book in front of him, let's it fall shut with a loud thud and looks at it like it personally offended him.

He can't remember the last time he read the adventures of Fluffy Bunny and somehow it bothers him now. In all the weeks he spent here, the ugly green walls and lumpy couch and tasteless food, he hasn't missed the outside world at all.

He missed his friends, sure. He missed cooking with Undyne and talking with Sans and watching movies with Alphys.

But now he misses his books. His stuff.

"Are you nervous about how they'll deal with it?" Alex asks suddenly, gesturing at the book Papyrus is currently giving a death glare. "Scared that they'll still treat you differently?"

With a sigh, Papyrus thinks back to the previous weekend and the unease he felt. If they hear this is not something that will be able to 'oh so magically' go away, will they just handle him as damaged goods forever?

Will they think him broken?

He pushes the books to the side, some of his origami birds tumble of the table and onto the ground in the process, before getting up.

"You done brooding?" Alex calls after him surprised.

"Done thinking." Papyrus doesn't close the door behind him.

* * *

He calls home and Toriel picks up, the others are out somewhere, living life, and it's so easy to forget that that's still a thing. That there lies anything outside these walls except his old, faded memories.

Most of which he'd like to forget

But Toriel is home so Papyrus just tells her.

The queen goes quiet, there's a crackling on the other side of the line and what sounds like a distant kitchen timer going off. She's probably baking pie.

Toriel laughs. It's sudden and bright and seems oddly out of place, Papyrus can relate to the way Dr. Burke felt about his response now too.

For a second, he considers she might not even know what it is, that the word is as meaningless to her as it was to him at first. But her school on the surface has been thriving, has opened itself to a lot of different children who might not fit in elsewhere and yes, she is familiar.

She knows what it means and she thinks it's great. She is happy for him.

Papyrus suddenly feels the need to cry.

"Aren't you-" He searches for the words, those that are stuck at the back of his head but feel too real to be let out. "Upset? I'm going to be a burden on all of you."

Papyrus isn't sure if he can live with that. He never wants to be a burden on anyone. What would be the point?

"My child." Toriel's voice is gentle and reassuring and Papyrus realizes he's glad it's her, he's glad she was the one who picked up the phone today. "You know this doesn't mean anything, except that you're different. And as far as I recall, The Great papyrus never was one for the mundane."

He stares at the floor, counts the little lines on the carpet because otherwise he might scream, be unable to keep his voice down. But she can't see the grin on his face either way. "Of course, The Great Papyrus doesn't do ordinariness."

And for just that moment, he can feel everything might be alright.

* * *

It's really funny how those things can go. One moment you're fine, everything is fine and the world is turning the way it is supposed to and perhaps you smile or perhaps you don't.

And then the next moment nothing is. Nothing is fine and maybe it never will be again.

"Hey look, it's snowing." Emma says, excitement lacing her voice, and she's pressing pale hands against the flat surface of the window, skin almost as white as the little ice crystals falling from the sky.

Her eyes are wide, like a child, and Papyrus feels it in his soul, tugging along the edges, wondering if maybe this is what Undyne felt when looking at him.

He somehow hopes not.

He looks out the window too, the snow is falling lightly, barely there at all, and it bunches on the grass and around the garden chairs. A little bit of white to break the monotony of brown and gray.

It is falling in just the same way as it did back in Snowdin.

Exactly the same way as when he dies.

And abruptly all is not fine anymore.

Because he's not here, he's nowhere and everywhere and he is falling apart. He is turning to dust, and it hurts so fucking much but he can't say.

Can't look any of them in the eye and tell them: "Hey, I died." Because they don't remember. And he can't tell the only one who does because he can't, he can't, why can't he?

Why couldn't he?

Papyrus doesn't remember why he didn't tell Sans.

Because he thought maybe it would be more painful than not telling?

Somebody touches his shoulder and he shakes, breaks and crumbles, pushes them away and they're not here.

Or they are, but they won't be forever.

Because resets never change and suffering never changes and he has had plenty of both. He just wants it all to stop now, please?

He's not sure how he managed to move, how his legs are still working when he's so obviously nothing but dust. But somehow he manages to brush them off, to force his limbs into action.

And he blinks so it's not white anymore. The snow isn't real and the cold can't reach him.

Resets are over, they said. We're never going to do that again.

Papyrus wishes he could take their word for it.

The bed is lumpy, with thin sheets and the shape of a regular rectangle and it's not his. It's not his bed.

It's just some thing here where he is but won't be or will be some day so what does it even matter anymore.

He sinks onto his knees and screams.

Maybe barely a second goes by or maybe minutes. Maybe hours but he's sure somebody would have come by to shut him up by then.

"Breath. It'll pass." Eli says. His wheelchair bumps into Papyrus, the boy curses under his breathe and bites his lip as he readjusts the wheels.

Papyrus looks up and there is no frown on Eli's face now. No defensiveness in his features. He looks awkward and helpless and maybe a little bit nauseous.

Papyrus can relate to that.

"Do you want anything?" Eli asks, and hearing his own words echoed back at him like that is almost as upsetting as it is hilarious.

Maybe if he weren't stuck running in circles inside his mind considering his many untimely deaths, Papyrus might have smiled.

"I want it to stop." He says. Honesty is the highest price, he learned. He has to learn. He will learn. "I want it all to be over."

"It won't. Believe me, I tried." Eli gestures at his broken leg, broken bones, broken. Just like Papyrus, just like all of them. Somehow they're all broken. "And it won't be over until you say so."

It sounds like something his psychiatrist would say so Papyrus rests his head against the bed and ignores him.

It can only be as long as you allow it to be.

And while some things can't be fixed, shouldn't be fixed. Others should.

It is time he talked with Sans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey, look at me! Back after the little hiatus I took without informing anyone because I'm a derp and I forget stuff. Whoospie.
> 
> (anyway, thanks for the comments and love you all!)


	10. Chapter 10

In war, there is such a thing as neutral territory. Ground upon which both parties should feel safe to move, usually there where negotiations will find place.

Papyrus never thought he and Sans needed neutral territory.

They share. His brother and him share a home, they've shared a bed and they've shared their food. Give them a crumb and somehow the two of them would manage to divide it equally.

(And why does that thought sounds so eerily familiar, become so readily available?)

This is the way it is, the way it always has been and the way Papyrus thought it would be forever.

Until now. Because this conversation needs to happen, has been long overdue, but somewhere they got stuck at the basics.

Sans doesn't like the institution and Papyrus can't do this at their house. Sans's house as far as he's concerned, for Papyrus has barely lived there. The walls are strange and the sights foreign and he can't deal with that on top of whatever Sans will dish out when they're talking.

Neutral territory it is.

And so they walk. All the way to where the now fades back into the then. And maybe it's not really level ground at all, because it is weighted down with their memories. But isn't that just what makes it so perfect?

Unsure whether Sans wants to return back into the caverns of the mountain, or just keep their hike to the summit of it, Papyrus chooses to walk a few paces behind the shorter skeleton. It's oddly reminiscent of a past time, if in the reverse position. His brother continually trailed behind him then, quite literally watching his back.

Sans would be very amused by the thought.

Then again, maybe Sans was just following because leading is hard and he's not very good at hard things.

The easiest path is that of least resistance and his brother always had the lowest defense imaginable. But sometimes you simply got to take a hit, sometimes there is no invading the upcoming battle.

This was definitely one of those times for them.

"You think this is far enough?" Sans finally breaks the silence that descended upon them after leaving the car. They're more than half-way up the mountain now, the view is absolutely stunning.

Papyrus finds himself agreeing with Frisk. It's an excellent sight to grace one's eyes before death.

He nods but Sans keeps on walking, slower this time so they can match pace. A cue that he's expecting Papyrus to start talking.

Papyrus doesn't want to.

He doesn't want to say anything, he wants to just enjoy the little dotting of houses bathing in sunshine in the distance, pretend like the blue of this sky has been all they've ever known. He wants to erase everything that happened before they came here and most that came after too.

He still wants it to all be over, thought in a different way than he used to. A healthier way.

His doctor would be proud simply for him realizing that.

"You remember when I told you right... About-" Papyrus starts.

"I remember." Sans sounds as tired as Papyrus feels and they sure do make a lovely pair like this, don't they?

Broken bones and dust and brotherhood. A perfect mess.

He grabs his brother's hand, his fingers are cold. For a second Sans looks as if he wants to draw back, but he doesn't, and Papyrus is grateful.

"You need to let me finish now." He says. "I need to talk. And you need to listen."

"I'm sorry." Sans mumbles, and Papyrus is sure he isn't but lets go anyway.

"You remember when I first told you, when we came here. About knowing all along." And it's true, because they were hiking too then, surrounding themselves with trees and shrubs and peace.

Things they never had underground.

"I remember being upset." Sans says, when Papyrus doesn't continue. "Because you didn't tell me sooner."

"I know." There is no green now. The leaves are rotting on the ground and the trees are bare, stark and black and everything is dead. "I was scared."

He stops Sans, grabs him by the shoulders and forces him to face him, because his legs feel like jelly, weak, and he needs to look at him to say this.

"I was scared of telling you because I knew I would hurt you. Because I didn't know how you would react and I was so tired, Sans. Tired of everything and-"

It hurts, his soul hurts all over again and he still can't say it, not out loud, not to Sans. Anyone but Sans. But he doesn't have to.

"And you wanted to die, right?" Sans knows, his voice is eerily calm and Papyrus can tell it is nothing new for him, a depressing familiarity with the want for death.

He never considered the extent of his brother's tiredness either.

He knew Sans was sad and he knew it made him lazy and hopeless and a cynical ass from time to time. But Papyrus never deemed that maybe his brother too-

It makes him want to cry, hold Sans and promise him he'll never hide anything from him again, but they can't do that yet. They can't-

"I didn't tell you, because you didn't want to know." Papyrus says at last, and this is it. This is what they'll have to face now, after all this time. "You never listened to me, Sans."

"I didn't wa-" He takes a step back, arms falling uselessly to his side and Papyrus can see that those words hit home. That the first blow has been dealt.

There is nothing for it now but to keep going.

"You. Didn't. Listen. You just wanted this idea of me, this up-beat positive persona you condemned me to, but you never cared to see anything else. You didn't want to." It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

How has it come to this?

"W-What?! Jesus, Papyrus, are you even listening to _yourself_ right now?" And Sans is defensive, closes up faster than he even imagined. " _You_ decided to take up that role, not I. You made yourself a martyr and you can't blame that on us now."

"I did not decide to be treated like a child by everyone, yet that's somehow where we ended up, isn't it. You always-" It sticks to his mandible and is this really what they wanted? Blame each other for their shared misery.

This isn't about finding a scapegoat, there is no blame here.

"You always think you're right, Sans. You always think that what you're doing is best for everyone. But it isn't..."

His brother stares at his feet, maybe there's shame on his face or maybe there isn't. Papyrus can't tell. He's tired of this already.

It's not nearly as fulfilling as he thought it would be.

"I'm sorry." Sans says, as if a simple apology could ever be enough again. The fight has left him as fast as it came and he looks even smaller now. Even more breakable.

But Papyrus can't hold him until he hears Sans say it.

"I'm sorry, Paps, not for what I've done. But for allowing it to come to this, ok? You're right, I haven't been the best brother I could be in a long while."

And then it's there and it feels like everything just broke a little bit more. Destruction is always the first step in creation.

"I haven't exactly been the best brother myself." Papyrus says, and he knows it's true as soon as he utters the words.

Then Sans sobs and Papyrus holds him, because it's finally ok to do so again, and the clouds that have drifted in while they were talking start showering them in light snowfall.

"I shouldn't have lied to you." Papyrus says, though he doesn't exactly feel regret for doing it all those years either.

Sans laughs, slightly self-deprecating. "I shouldn't have put you in a position where you thought lying was your only option."

And it tastes like relief.

"It's fine." Papyrus holds him closer, crushes him to his chest, doesn't want to ever let go. They could sit here together and be swallowed by the snow forever, and he wouldn't have a single complaint. "We're fine now, it's fine."

It isn't fine, but it will be someday.

* * *

"It's not gonna eat you or anything." Alex laughs, and they're holding their stomach, as if this is one of the funniest things they have ever seen.

Papyrus just draws his legs further up the couch, does his best to look affronted. "I don't care what you say, just keep it away from me."

The dog turns to him, as if noticing it's being talked about, and Papyrus frowns at it harder. It doesn't seem impressed.

"I can't believe you're being so rude to Brady." Marcus says besides him. He tries to beckon the animal over with gentle hand gestures but the dog's preoccupied with Alex's petting. "We barely get him here, the pediatric unit always hogs him."

"Think of the wee little children." Alex imitates in a weird high voice, some cultural reference Papyrus doesn't get, their hands tangled into the long golden fur of the Retriever.

The dog slobbers all over the floor, tail wagging excitingly, and Alex coos at it as if somehow the mess is quite an achievement. Papyrus scowls instead.

So, therapy dogs. He doesn't get the point.

* * *

"You need to start thinking about your life after this." Doctor Burke tells him, and just like that it's real.

Papyrus knew this wouldn't last forever, the tranquility the institution has to offer is not something of the real world. It's been three months.

And despite the confrontation and the nightmares and the emptiness, they have been three months of peace. The outside world is waiting and Papyrus isn't sure it won't tear him right apart again.

"What is there to think about?" He asks, and for somebody that overthinks everything it's a stupid thing to say, he realizes.

"Simple things at first." Burke explains. "Where you're going to be living, what you're going to fill your days with. Good preparation and attainable goals are paramount to prevent relapse."

Until then, Papyrus hadn't really considered anything besides returning to the same old routine was even an option. Going back to live with Sans, fill his days with cleaning the house and cooking and staring at the wall and-

Why had he never thought it could be any different, or was he just too tired to change?

Papyrus hopes he's not as tired anymore, but even now he is not sure.

"You'll be coming in as an out-patient for regular therapy, so if you're planning to look for work or education, it will have to be part-time." His doctor explains.

It sounds unreal, like it's not him this is happening to.

"I... I'd have no idea what I want to do." He mumbles, ashamed. So detached from his own personality he can't even figure out what he wants for himself.

Pathetic.

"That's fine." Doctor Burke says, and his eyes are soft, compassionate. Papyrus can't remember why he disliked this man. "You have time. We can figure it out together."

Because he reminds him of somebody that doesn't exist anymore and maybe never did?

"What about living arrangements. Do you want to go back to living with your brother?"

There it is, the other shoe always drops.

"I don't know." Papyrus admits. Honesty has become easy for him, sometimes. Not with Sans though.

"Well, I think it's fair to say your brother has had a rather significant influence on your life, if it's ok with you I'd..." The doctor stops and while Papyrus already knows what he is going to ask, he can't do anything to stop it.

Like watching a car crash in slow motion.

"I'd like to meet him." Burke finishes. "So we can talk."

His first instinct is to refuse, maybe deny he ever had a brother in the first place and jump out of the nearest window with the excuse of a much needed bathroom break.

Sans isn't the only one in their family who has a knack for avoidance after all.

Instead, Papyrus just nods, feeling like his limbs are too heavy to move. "Of course, I'm sure he'll like that."

Honesty isn't always the best option, and for the first time in a while he fakes a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, since sadly I've come down with pneumonia (way to go me), but I wanted to post something anyway.
> 
> I've been in a bad place, so thanks again for all the amazing comments. They lift my heart!


	11. Chapter 11

The painting is really bugging him. It looks like some kind of surrealistic interpretation, with swirls of colour that probably don't translate into anything sensible in most people's eyes.

But Papyrus isn't most people and he stares at it, sees the edges of a sun in the bottom left corner, clouds drifting across the ground. An upside down tree with roots stretching towards a gravely sky.

He wonders if a patient made it (probably) and he wonders where they're now (dead maybe) and what happened to his own painting from art therapy all those weeks ago (gone forever hopefully).

Most of all he wonders why they hung it upside down, why they failed to see the image portrayed in this cacophony of painted lines, and it bugs him.

So he stares at it and focuses on it and bounces his leg up and down in an effort to ignore Sans sitting in the chair next to him.

Sans was fine with talking to the doctor, he's always fine with talking, not so much with doing stuff practically, and that bugs Papyrus too but not enough to actually mention it. Not enough to spur him into some kind of action.

Things have rarely had that effect on him and as Papyrus looks at the painting, the painting somebody put up wrong because they couldn't see what he sees and it bugs him, he wonders why he never did.

* * *

In hindsight it will probably be quite amusing, but then again most things are. If he had brought any popcorn, Papyrus might even use the term 'entertaining'.

He didn't though. He doesn't even like popcorn.

He likes Sans sitting there with his arms crossed looking like a toddler that is getting scolded though. That's great.

He likes somebody else telling Sans that sure, things are not 'fine', but that is at least partly his fault too and he should take responsibility. Sans doesn't do responsibility, Papyrus could tell Doctor Burke, but refrains.

But it is refreshing still, after weeks of being told these are his problems, his issues, his denial, his diagnosis, his self-doubt, his, his, his...

Now it are his brother's problems too.

There's a silence, after what has mostly been a monologue so far, the doctor has done a lot of talking and Sans has done a lot of sitting around trying his best at looking like he is comfortable.

He's not as good an actor as he is a comedian.

And then Burke rests his elbows on the desk and looks at both of them as if they're children in a petty argument pointing fingers at each other.

"Tell me, how would you describe your relationship?" He says, and since his head is turned towards Sans as he does so Papyrus decides to keep his diplomatic silence going a little longer.

"We're brothers." The skeleton in question says and the doctor laughs.

"No, I meant... the state of your relationship. Would you say it's a healthy one?"

"Of course." Sans starts talking before Burke can even finish his question properly. "It's fine, we're fine."

Is there any clearer way to communicate they're _not_ fine?

"I see." The doctor says, though they're not sure what it is he's seeing at all. He turns his head toward Papyrus, who coughs into his hands to delay having to answer.

"It could be better." He decides eventually, and Sans tenses in the chair next to him.

"Have you ever thought about getting any... professional help? You are in a complicated situation after all, it's not unusual t-"

"We don't need help." Sans blurts, and he is clenching his fists in a way that makes it clear to Papyrus he is angry now, feeling helpless.

Denial.

"Apparently I do." He almost mutters, but loud enough for his brother to hear, who whips his head around and glares at him as if somehow this is all his fault, always his fault.

"Right..." Burke says quickly, before Sans can respond, messing with the papers on his desk. "Maybe I could speak to Sans alone for a bit."

"By all means." Papyrus is half-way out the door in the blink of an eye, trying not to grin, caught between relieve upon leaving the loaded situation and regret he doesn't get to see this thing pan out.

Sans is still glaring at him, betrayed, as if Papyrus is throwing him at the wolves, but somehow he can't feel guilty about it.

He knows how it feels. Like being tossed into the deep end of a pool and have a bunch of people standing on the side yelling at you to 'just swim'.

While you can't do anything but sink.

* * *

He decides to go back to the unit proper because there's no use in waiting at the door like a lost puppy.

The painting is still there, right where they left it, and of course it is, because everybody is blind except for him.

Papyrus stares at it again and then, turning his head both ways to find the hallway completely deserted, takes it off the wall, flips it right side up and returns it to its spot.

Looking at it, it seems like such a tiny, insignificant change in the grand scheme that is the hospital, the world.

But maybe a tiny part of himself makes more sense now.

* * *

"Papyrus!"

It takes him a few moments to catch up and realize whose voice is calling out to him, so out of place does it feel.

Something not belonging on the PUUH.

But he turns around and there Doggo is, just outside the glass doors that face the parking lot.

Papyrus nearly runs over, barely able to contain himself at the sight of another familiar face, one that isn't Sans. He hasn't seen any of his old colleagues since coming here, now months before.

Hasn't actually seen much of them since coming to the surface at all.

But Doggo had always been a friendly face to him, was always up for a chat on his daily rounds through Snowdin forest. And Papyrus doesn't want to go back to the unit yet anyway, doesn't want to sit around thinking of whatever his brother is telling Doctor Burke.

Or is being told by him.

Doggo is standing just outside the doors, leaning against the wall, the air around him heavy with the smoke of burning dog treats, and Papyrus breathes it in with a smile, the nostalgia soothing away his troubled thoughts.

He can almost feel the snow in the air again.

"Hey kid, how you've been doing?" The other monster asks, voice even heavier than it used to be and Doggo always was the only one allowed to call him kid.

The only one who made it sound like a title rather than an insult.

"I'm fine." Papyrus says, before remembering his newest conviction and altering his stance a bit, wrapping one arm around himself. "It's getting better anyway."

Doggo exhales as some charred pieces fall of the treat onto the ground. "Glad to hear it." And he smiles through the scars on his face, the ragged lines across his cheek.

"What are you doing here?" Papyrus asks, unsure if he's genuinely curious or just wants to prolong the conversation, this normality of conduct.

This absence of medication and nurses and people tearing their hair out to stop the voices inside their head.

"Somebody needed to drive your lazy brother here, didn't they." Doggo answers, inhaling sharply. "He sure as hell won't drive himself."

The last part is added more as a mumbled afterthought, but Papyrus nods in agreement. Learning to steer one of the human's fantastical automobiles was one of the first things he did after reaching the surface. Sans on the other hand, was always looking to hitch a ride.

"You don't even like Sans." He blurts out, unsure why, maybe oddly longing back to those end-of-shift chats between snowy trees.

Everybody likes Sans, everybody loves Sans. He's funny and smart and good at talking to people. While Papyrus is just Papyrus, the goofy little brother.

Doggo never liked Sans and Papyrus likes Doggo.

"I don't." The dog monster confirms, grinning crookedly and his sharp incisors peek out from beneath curled lips. "But I like you and you needed him here today so..."

He shrugs it off as if it's nothing, but Papyrus feels oddly warmed by the sentiment. He opens his mouth to say so but his friend scowls.

"Don't mention it." He says. He throws the remains of his smoke on the ground and steps on it, extinguishing the lingering glow beneath his paw. "You're a good kid, but if you hug me I'll shank you."

Papyrus laughs and Doggo can't help but grin again.

"Still 11?" Papyrus asks. Doggo casts his eyes both ways to check if the coast is clear.

"12 now." He answers, skillfully making a thin knife appear out of the inside of his booth.

The glass doors slide open with a distinct sound and he quickly slips it back in place, but it's just Sans.

Humans don't really approve of weapons near their hospitals.

"You okay?" Papyrus asks at the vacant expression on his brother's face. Maybe doctor Burke broke him.

"I uh..." Sans looks from him to Doggo, back to him. "I think I have a shrink now."

He's holding a small, paper business card in his hand. Papyrus has seen them before, they're the kind the doctors give to people that signed up for outpatient care.

'Depression treatment and management' it says.

And Papyrus is unsure whether to laugh or to cry at that.

* * *

The recreation room is nearly deserted when he comes back, everybody but Marcus and the new girl, whose name Papyrus seems to recall is Barbara, up in art therapy.

"So who was that, your drug dealer?" Marcus jokes as soon as he sits down in front of his puzzle, a half-completed picture of a mountainside dotted with little houses in front of him.

"Ha-ha, you're so hilarious." Papyrus quips, naturally falling back into the habit of multitasking while he talks, keeping his hands busy. "You remind me of my brother."

"Ouch, that hurts." The man shoots back, equally sarcastic and holding both hands over his heart for dramatic effect.

He takes a seat on the table instead of a chair, planting his bum right besides the scattered pieces and Papyrus raises his eyes at him.

"You know we can tell those kinds of things, don't you?"

Papyrus recognizes a set-up when he sees one, but decides to bite nonetheless. "You can tell what?"

"The dealers, the junkies. Those that just do it for fun and those that are escaping their problems with a nice little trip to oblivion." Marcus bounces his feet against the skeleton's chair repeatedly, but he ignores it.

Instead, he rolls his eyes at him and turns back to his puzzle.

"It's true." Marcus says quickly, and stretches one hand to point at Barbara, hunched up on the couch looking like an injured little bird. Papyrus tried approaching her earlier, remembering how lost he felt when first coming here, but she had seemed unresponsive to his offer of help.

"Take her for example. Probably two or three years of abuse, kicked it like a good little citizen and gets launched straight into a depression the size of a continent. I'm guessing cocaine with a side of ecstasy."

Papyrus barely dares glance over his shoulder, feeling like somehow he shouldn't be having this conversation but curiosity piqued still. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I was here, once. Or like her, at least. She's a lucky one." The feet bumping against the edge of his chair stop and when he looks back Marcus has a faraway look in his eyes.

"We all start with one little smoke, one little drink, one little pill, because life sucks and there's some relief to be found in not being _there_ for a short while." His fingers trace over his wrists, the white marks of scars and the black ones of ink. "One little cut, just to feel anything. And before you know it, you're lying in an alley in a puddle of your own puke and smelling like a deceased hooker."

"A what?" Papyrus asks and Marcus seems to startle, as if woken from a trance, grinning smugly as he pats the skeleton's head.

"I'll tell you when you're older." He says, jumping off the table to avoid Papyrus smacking at him. "Anyway, this place is dead as a door nail, so I'm out of here. Want to come with?"

Papyrus looks at his still unfinished puzzle, then at Barbara muttering to herself and the depressing tile walls around them.

"I'll come with." He echoes, leaving the pieces scattered as they are.

* * *

Papyrus didn't even know the hospital had a library until a few minutes ago. It's modest at best, more like the bookcases he had at home than the actual proper library Papyrus sometimes used to go to in town.

The books are worn and the edges are torn and the pages have creases, but a little kid on crutches clutches them to their chest as if they're the most treasured books in the world and Papyrus smiles.

Marcus stands leaving through a thick novel with a complicated name that Papyrus knows isn't English and he vows to ask him about it later, but for now his eyes are roving over the titles himself.

One section is labeled 'education' and the books beneath it look like the ones Frisk used for school, though maybe bigger and heavier.

Psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, physiotherapy...

Books that teach you how to help others, he presumes.

Papyrus think of Eli, banging his wheelchair against a metal door over and over again. He thinks of the scars on Marcus' wrists and the way Emma scratches her arms. He thinks of Alex bending over a bucket and retching their gut out, of Barbara hugging herself and cowering from the world.

He thinks of Doctor Burke asking him if he knew what he wanted from life yet.

"Do you need a library card to get these?" Papyrus asks out loud, as his hands touch the tattered book spines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter this weekend (and it's still too short for my liking) because my sickness continues. I would apologize, but that's hard to do when your lungs are trying to cough their way out of your body.
> 
> Thanks for all the lovely comments though, and the concerns for my health. I read them and cry tears of happiness, you guys are the best!
> 
> (also yes, Doggo's appearance in this chapter is 100% Zeke's fault)


	12. Chapter 12

His brother never listened.

There's a lot that has changed between them, there's a lot that hasn't. But Sans can be relied upon in one aspect and one aspect only.

He never listens.

And that's exactly why Papyrus finds himself sitting across from Undyne, desperately trying to keep her from breaking a chair or table over her knee. Or one of the other patients.

"What happened after that?" Papyrus asks, hesitatingly maybe, because there truly is only one way this story could end. At least she's more predictable than Sans is.

"She called me a freak so I called her a bitch, and then I broke her windshield." Undyne states matter-of-factly. "But that's all boring stuff, you have enough problems of your own without listening to mine."

"Your problems are a lot more engaging." He assures her, picking out another piece to fit around the edges of his latest puzzle, a gift from Frisk. "And they come with better curse words."

"Of course they do, you dork..." She rubs her hands down her eyes and for a second Papyrus sees something there that makes him forget his initial annoyance at her being here in the first place.

"Are you tired?" He asks, and Undyne gives him that look, a look he has become accustomed with over years of being friends that pretty much means: 'I would suplex you right here, right now, if only it were socially appropriate'.

It's already a huge step forward for her. She used to just suplex him no matter the situation.

"It's just a lot-" She says, with a hand gesture that could mean anything but conveys nothing and Papyrus rolls his eyes, because all the goodwill in the world won't change his former captain.

It's both a comfort and a curse.

Her legs bounce against the table restlessly so he gives up on making his puzzle and starts putting away the pieces instead. It wasn't a very good puzzle day to begin with, too much noise in his head.

"What do you even do here, all day." She asks suddenly, eyes wandering around the bleak little room used for visitation hour. wallpaper meant to be comforting and little paintings meant to be uplifting. At least they're all right side up. "Do you just... puzzle all the time or?"

"We have a lot of therapy..." Seeing her blank stare he adjusts himself, tugging at the scarf newly placed around his neck. "Talking."

One of the small comforts in her visit, despite considering not even getting out of bed after hearing his almost best friend and local destroyer of doors was coming, was the scarf.

Papyrus hadn't really thought about it after coming here. He had left his battle body behind, and the scarf had been part of that, a fabrication to substitute a cape in a time when he still thought he could be a hero.

When he still thought he was helping.

But Undyne, abrasive, loud, all over the place as she was, had brought it to him. Asked him in the tiniest voice if maybe it would help to wear it again.

And he had almost refused, because wasn't he here because everything used to suck and it needed to stop. Wasn't he here because everything he had before was tearing him apart and he needed something else.

But as soon as he touched it, had it in his hands, it felt right. Like a part of him had been missing without him realizing it and now it had finally returned.

And he has the books from the hospital library anyway, sorted them out neatly on his little bedside table and reads three chapters every single night.

Soon, he might be able to help people again.

"Why are you here?" He asks eventually, because Undyne shouldn't have come, couldn't have come and he's glad she's here but it's not right.

Her being here is not right.

"I'm fine I just-" She doesn't look at him, Undyne always looks you straight in the face when she's talking. "I just got really fed up with the whole wedding thing so I needed a break."

It takes a lot for Papyrus not to grab her by the shirt and drag her over the table. "You don't want to marry anymore?!"

It's amazing how a face can shift between the emotions of unadulterated surprise, pure shock, and 'you killed my father prepare to die' in a mini second.

"Of course I do!" She yells, so loud the other patients and their visitors turn their heads in shock. In a move that is very much unlike her, Undyne flushes, balling her fists on the tabletop and pretending she's calm.

"Of course I still want to marry. I love Alphys." Her eyes get soften whenever she mentions that name.

Papyrus noticed it even before coming to the surface, saw it there then, but somehow it's more real now. "But?" He implores, closing the box and setting it on the table between them. A peace offering.

"But that's the problem, isn't it?" Undyne tugs at the fiery red strands in her ponytail and looks at him like a child wanting their parent to validate their irrational fear for monsters in the closet. "I love her so, so much. What if she changes her mind? Or if I bore her? I'm not as smart as she is, Papyrus, I can't-"

"Yeah, you need to stop that now." He interrupts her, and maybe he's smiling a little bit and that's why she looks so affronted.

So he grabs her hands quickly, before she throws a tantrum, and tries to think back to the facial expressions he used to employ. The fake smiles and trusting glances he perfected over time that might be a bit more sincere now.

A little bit.

"You need to stop that. Because you're doing both yourself and Alphys a huge disservice." Papyrus read that in chapter twenty. And you can't love other people if you can't love yourself, it said.

He wasn't sure if that was true. He hasn't loved himself for the longest time now, but he loves his brother and he loves his friends and the tiny voice of doubt such a simple sentence sparked was easily buried.

Undyne is looking at him like he sprouted another head, so he tightens his fingers around hers and rolls his eyes. "I mean you're being stupid."

"I don't need you to tell me that." She murmurs, almost pouting now. And then after a beat. "But you're sure?"

"Yes I do and yes I am." He has never been surer of anything in his life.

Undyne looks relieved for all but one second before forcing her usual cocky grin back in place and pretending nothing happened, though notably more relaxed now.

Helping people was working out fine so far...

* * *

He goes back to the pond every week, and sits on the bench he and Paige sat on that very first time.

There was no bread left over from breakfast today, and the ducklings, now so accustomed to Papyrus' appearance as a synonym for food they recognize the sound of his footfall, flit to the edge and waddle between the reeds, quacking loudly for their share.

They're not soft and small and yellow anymore. They have sleek feathers of green and brown and they wade across the water effortlessly. Nobody ever had to learn them to swim, they just knew.

It came to them naturally and easily and without question.

Somewhere, Papyrus envies that.

He thinks of Paige sometimes, and wonders what happened to her. She hasn't sent a card, hasn't been to visit, but he likes to imagine her back at home with her wife and children. Back to normal and thoroughly happy.

And thus, he envies her too.

* * *

"I'm not going to let you read it." Papyrus tries hard to keep his voice even, squeezing the plastic in his fist. "I don't even want to write it."

"Doctor's orders." Sans says on the other end of the line, but it's easy for him to talk.

His psych didn't ask him to write a collection of short stories detailing 'past experiences that might influence his current mental condition and the mistakes he made in dealing with them'.

Papyrus doesn't even know where to start, just that he'll have an entire book by the time he's done. Maybe if he publishes it he'd make some money out of his misery at least.

He hangs up on Sans shortly after, because simply talking to his brother is too much right now. Jackie passes by just then, on her way to the nurses office with an array of boxes containing another patient's medical cocktail.

She throws him a concerned glance. "Is your brother alright?"

It takes Papyrus by surprise, jars the life back into him, but he guesses it must make sense. There's nobody else he ever calls.

"He's fine, just..." He searches his vocabulary for a synonym to 'annoying' that doesn't sound quiet so mean. "It's difficult talking to him." He decides. Not exactly what he was going for, but it works.

Jackie nods empathically, a skill all nurses on the unit seem to have cultivated over time, and smiles thinly.

"It must be. But I'm happy you're trying still. From what I understand, the two of you have spend your entire lives together. It's important that you are able to talk to somebody who has been through the same kind of hardships as you and understands what you're going through."

She delivers it so casually, a simple statement within a waterfall of facts and just like that Jackie has already disappeared into the office before her words can fully reach him.

And then they do and Papyrus feels like crying.

Either because he never considered their situation in such a manner. Or because it's not like that at all for them. Or maybe because it is and he refused to see.

Or because somewhere he knows his brother will never understand him and that hurts.

* * *

How long did it take for him to get used to it? Papyrus isn't sure. How long does it take for anybody to get used to dying...

But Doctor Burke is looking at him as if he expects an answer, as if there is one.

He thinks back and almost feels the ice on his bones again.

Seven times. It took him seven times to get used to it.

* * *

Doctors go to a lot of schools to learn how to always be right. In extension, they don't really appreciate being told that they're wrong.

Papyrus pushes Eli through the hospital hallways, keeping a firm grip on the handlebars in case the youth decides to throw a tantrum again, and nods along to his narrative.

Doctors don't like being told that they're wrong. Psychiatrists don't like patients who think they know themselves better than the professionals do.

And Eli still doesn't like the unit.

"When I seem eager to try a higher dose, they tell me I rely too much on my pills. When I complain about insomnia, they tell me I need to give the pills a chance. And they have the nerve to tell us we're confused?"

Papyrus doesn't respond as they get in the elevator and Eli pushes the button for the ground floor. They're going to the gift shop, because Eli is out of cookies and an Eli without cookies is not a good thing.

When he's in a bad mood the entire unit suffers.

"The only thing they reliable cure up there is enthusiasm." He continues complaining, throwing up his hands so wildly he almost hits Papyrus in the nasal bone. "Look at this."

His fingers are trembling slightly, and he curls them into fists with a frown. "It's called a tremor and it's on the list of possible side-effect. If Sandra tries to convince me it's psychosomatic one more time I'll fucking strangle her."

The woman in the other corner of the elevator throws a concerned glance in their direction and Papyrus does his best to look reassuring, and not like they're two asylum patients planning the imminent murder of one of their caretakers.

He's not so sure he successfully puled it off.

"You shouldn't fight with them." He advice softly, while Eli lets his head fall back to look up at him. He looks a lot younger when he's not looking angry, but right now he looks ancient. "We're dependent on them for... everything."

"Right, and there's a name for that." Eli answers. "It's called Stockholm's syndrome."

"It's called common sense." Papyrus shoots back, steering them out of the elevator once they reach their floor. The gift shop has a very flashy looking magazine on human automobiles he has been dying to get all week now.

"If we had any common sense we wouldn't be at the PUUH, now would we?" Eli asks him, and he is inclined to agree with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still sick so the chapters are still a bit short. Sorry about that...
> 
> but THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all the lovely comments, especially those wishing me a better health. It really made my week!


	13. Chapter 13

A thousand paper cranes are really a lot, and putting them all on colored strings takes almost as much work and time as folding them. But it's a rainy afternoon and art therapy got canceled for some reason, the unit is bored.

It takes a few hours, but then they're done.

Papyrus asks for permission from the nurses and he's allowed to hang them in the common room, right in front of the windows, where the curtains should be. There are so many you can barely see the stormy weather outside, and just looking at them makes him want to sigh in contentment.

Somehow, they remind him of home. Wherever that is.

"What did you wish for?" Alex asks and he looks at them as their eyes are caught on the myriad of pretty colors.

"Nothing." He answers truthfully. "There is nothing I would wish for."

* * *

There comes a point when there is nothing left to say and Papyrus has reached it.

He wrote notebooks full of memories, talked for hours on end to different people with different reactions, and he has laid awake replaying every single scene of his life over and over again until they became so clear to him they blurred again at the edges.

There comes a point when you need to stop looking back and start going forward and Papyrus has reached it.

* * *

Therapy starts at 2 pm sharp, according to the schedule. According to reality, it might start anywhere between its appointed time and half an hour later.

Nothing kills enthusiasm quite as thoroughly as spending a few weeks in a mental health ward.

Papyrus is a notable exception, and boy do his co-patients keep reminding him. He arrives everywhere three minutes early, a stubborn habit he learned from Undyne that hasn't left him since coming to the surface.

Eli arrives everywhere three minutes early as well, because Papyrus pushes his wheelchair along everywhere he goes now.

The boy is still cynical and hot-headed and utterly convinced of his own sanity, and Papyrus likes him for all these reasons.

But earlier than them still are the doctors. They're professionals who are professionally prompt in all their actions.

So when it is half past and Marcus wanders into the room smelling like cigarettes, but Docter Burke has still not arrived, Papyrus knows something must be wrong.

Jackie storms into the room 15 minutes later, just as a few of the other patients were starting to debate if they should try to make a break for it.

"I'm so, so sorry." She says, clutching the clipboard to her chest, perhaps in an effort to slow down her racing heart. "We forgot to notify you. Doctor Burke has been in an accident."

Various sounds ranging from joy over annoyance to worry sweep through the room. Jackie shakes her head hurriedly, trying to speak up over the ruckus.

"It's nothing serious and he will return in a few weeks at most. In the meantime group therapy will be postponed until a solution can be found." She explains calmly, and most seem satisfied with the explanation.

One woman in the corner, whom Papyrus doesn't really know, wrings her hands together nervously and waits until most other people start to leave the room, muttering under their breathe about what they need to do to while the time away with now.

He waits too because trying to push Eli's wheelchair into the hallway when it's full of people would be a wasted effort anyway.

"What about me?" The woman pipes up eventually, and it takes a second for Jackie to fully realize she is being addressed. "I was supposed to have my final rehabilitation therapy tomorrow. I'm going home on Friday."

She says it with such fragility in her voice, such fear, that Papyrus can feel his heart going out to her.

"We'll find a solution for that too." Jackie says, laying one hand on the distressed patient's shoulder.

Whatever else they might do for her is lost to Papyrus as Eli starts wheeling himself out of the room instead, impatient as ever. The skeleton trails behind with a sigh, and once they're in the hallway reaches for the handlebars again.

"I hope Doctor Burke is uninjured." Papyrus mutters, and his companion laughs.

"I'm sure you do." His mood seems to drop instantly after saying it though, body hunching into itself in its metal and plastic contraption. "It's a disgrace how understaffed these kinds of hospitals are."

Papyrus nods, he heard this from several patients before already and agrees wholeheartedly. There are so many people that need help, ask for help, and don't get it.

So many people that suffer, like him.

He finished all the books from the library and is going down later to get more.

* * *

It isn't always better though. Papyrus sits on a chair in the little room that serves as the unit's kitchen. His legs are folded beneath him, kneecaps bearing the full weight of his pelvis and it hurts, his bones hurt a lot.

But Papyrus doesn't move and just sits, stares the the fridge making a soft humming noise. It's peaceful and at the same time painful, but everything is dark so it doesn't matter.

It is the middle of the night and the PUUH sleeps. Except it doesn't.

He is awake, uncomfortable on his chair, and now the sound of footsteps reaches him too.

Emma shuffles into the kitchen on slippered feet, yawning into her palm and squinting at the dim lighting. Her long black hair hangs loosely around her shoulders for a change, Papyrus doesn't think he has ever seen it down like this, but it suits her.

She opens the fridge and reaches for the milk. The light from inside catches on his shape and Papyrus shifts. The milk carton comes hurling towards him and only his fast instincts and a tad of blue magic can keep it from colliding with his face.

"Jesus christ, Papyrus, don't scare me like that." She says in some weird kind of yelp-whisper. Her face is oddly red and her eyes are wide open now.

"I'm sorry." He says, even though he isn't really, because he's just empty right now. There isn't room for anything else.

Emma seems to read his expression because she sounds more empathic than embarrassed when she gets two glasses from the nearest shelf. "Want some? It's good for your bones." She offers, and Papyrus almost cracks a smile.

She takes the seat across from him, after flicking on the lights so they won't be sitting around in the dark. Her eyes take some time adjusting to the sudden brightness so she blinks at him and the room.

Papyrus stares down at his glass, then her legs, then away quickly, at the wall behind her.

With a small cough Emma tries to catch his gaze, shifting on her seat. "I uh- I didn't know anyone would be awake. Otherwise I would have worn long pants."

He nods awkwardly, not sure how to respond, then shakes his head. Too empty to deal with something like this now.

"They're ugly, I know." Emma mumbles, looking at her own skin, and Papyrus looks again too, because it doesn't matter anymore now. He already saw.

The scars are all different from each other, varying in size and color. Some he recognizes as cuts or burns, some he can't place at all.

There are tears in her eyes when she looks up. "I can't believe I did this to myself." She mutters, trying to keep the strain out of her voice. "I just didn't want people to see. I didn't want them to know. That's why I normally cover them."

"I don't see anything wrong with them." Papyrus says, plainly, as if it's the most matter-of-fact thing in the world and maybe that's what makes the difference between pity and honesty.

Emma tries to smile, even if it's a hopeless effort, but makes an attempt to wipe the tears from her eyes anyway, tucking her legs under the chair instead.

Papyrus sips his milk silently, musing on how it doesn't taste the same as at home.

Skeletons don't scar, he never had to worry about things like that. Just about Sans finding the dust on their kitchen floor.

Something passes between them, a silent agreement about some unspeakable thing, and then it's gone, broken by the sound of more footsteps in the hallway.

"What's this, having a party are we?" Alex asks as they walk in, short hair the epitome of an epic bedhead, even though Papyrus knows they haven't slept at all.

Insomnia seems to be a common symptom within the unit.

"I'm just showing Papyrus why I'll never be able to wear a sundress again." Emma says airily, though a slight waver in her voice betrays underlying nervousness.

"Girl, we can knock down societies' beauty standards together." They answer equally as casual, rummaging through the cabinet and pulling out an entire packet of chocolate chip cookies.

"Aren't those Eli's?" Papyrus asks, and Alex looks at the snack in their hands as if unsure how it got there.

"I think so." They shrug, shoving a handful in their mouth and Papyrus can't help but look disgusted at that.

Honestly, his roommate is as bad as his brother sometimes. At least they don't leave socks just lying around in the common room.

"It's so boring around here!" Alex complains loudly, prompting Emma to hush them over her glass of milk. They just roll their eyes back, but Papyrus unfolds himself out of his still uncomfortable position, bones rubbing together painfully.

"I know what we can do." He says, not sure why. The absent feeling is still there, subdued now by the presence of others, but just waiting to swallow him whole in the next moment of weakness.

He needs to do this, and he thinks he can trust these people enough to show them.

* * *

"Are you sure this is ok?" Emma asks nervously, and her hand is locked so close around his wrist it makes his ulna ache.

Even Alex looks less sure as their eyes lock on the darkened stairwell. "You think there'd be guards or something..."

"It's a hospital, not a prison." Emma mumbles, but doesn't sound as certain either.

"It's fine." Papyrus says, already starting to make his way upstairs. "There are no doctors around at this hour, and the nightshift doesn't come by again till 3 or so."

His strides are confident, while his two companions shuffle along trying to make as little noise as humanly possible.

He opens the door with an audible creak and looks down the hallway quickly, just to make sure they don't end up getting caught anyway. That would be rather embarrassing.

"The coast is all clear." He jokes, being the first to make his way into the pitch black corridor. Closed doors on both sides lead into different therapy rooms and offices, but right now the place is unnaturally deserted.

In the hours of the night, the PUUH belongs to the patients alone.

"Wow, this is freaky as fuck." Alex says, following Papyrus through the entranceway. Emma stands at the door, unable to keep her feet still.

"Can we go down now?" She mumbles, looking behind them every few seconds as if expecting to see someone at any moment, despite Papyrus assuring them nobody would be.

"I haven't actually showed you the thing yet." He says, walking a little down the hallway.

Alex walks right behind him and after a few seconds Emma follows suit as well, wincing at how loud the door closes when she lets it fall shut.

Papyrus stops right as they come to the little nook that serves as a waiting room.

"Tada!" He intones, a bit lamely, waiting for the other two to catch up.

It takes them a second to realize what he is going on about, but when they do, both break out in fits of giggles.

"Are you serious?" Alex asks, probably a rhetorical question. "You _are_ fucking insane."

"Are they all upside down?" Emma asks, now unconcerned by the noise they must be making. Her hands touch the nearest painting. An impressionist piece for sure, but any decent-minded person should recognize it as a fruit basket upon closer inspection.

An upside down fruit basket.

"Originally only that one was." Papyrus explains, pointing to the cacophony of color he noticed some days ago, and now the only painting in the area hung the right direction. "My pièce the résistance."

The royal family had a lot of art books in their library. He used to read them all the time when he was king.

"Now I'm just switching them all around to see when somebody will notice."

Emma shakes her head while Alex nods approvingly. "How long has it been?" They ask.

"Three days." Something close to pride wells inside his chest at their amazement. He knew he did the right thing in showing them.

"You are insane." Alex repeats, but their eyes shine with an amusement he can't quite place and Papyrus knows it's a compliment.

* * *

Nurses don't run.

They are the calm, the eye of a storm that dictates the patient's mind. They are the lifeline in a raging sea of confusion and pain.

And they _don't_ run.

Until they do, a flurry of excitement and Papyrus lays down the pieces of the puzzle he was working on, stands in the doorframe and watches. Sarah passes him, barely spares him a look, but stops at the last moment.

"I need you to do me a favor." she says urgently, and Papyrus finds himself nodding.

"We lost... some pills." It is hard for her, getting it out. "They were probably just misplaced by accident, but if you-"

She seems to almost reconsider her line of thought. "If you hear anything just let us know."

She is gone before he can respond and Papyrus wanders into the common room, unsure what Sarah is even expecting of him.

Only thinking he needs to do something. Static has been filling his mind since this morning and it's one of those days.

Alex raises their eyes from the tv guide when he walks in. "What's all the fuzz about now?"

Maybe afterwards, he could blame it on himself. But it seemed so logical at the time. So simple.

"They lost some pills. They think maybe a patient took them."

It wasn't such a good day to start with.

"That's ridiculous." Emma complains. "None of us would do such a thing."

They were all on edge already.

"Almost none of us at least..." Eli says from his spot at the table, eyes focused on his sudoku but loud enough for anybody to hear.

He shouldn't have said anything.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Alex lays the book aside now, knees balancing on the couch and it's like a bomb, seconds before hitting ground.

They all know what is about to happen but nobody can stop it.

Eli turns around in his wheelchair, looks at the person who hasn't uttered a single word since Papyrus came in.

"Isn't it obvious? There's only one junkie in the room."

The statement is met with such complacency, a deafening silence that lasts too long for comfort, that for an instant Papyrus can think maybe nothing will happen.

Then a glass shatters against the wall. Shards rain down onto the carpet, Emma flinches and Alex sits up straighter but nobody says a word.

Marcus is on his feet now, his eyes are too dark and his fist too strained, his tattoo looks menacing against the paleness of his skin. He doesn't look at Eli, doesn't look at any of them.

"Say shit like that one more time, kid." His breathing is ragged and Papyrus wonders if he's crying. "And I'll make sure you won't be leaving that wheelchair any time soon."

The world probably kept turning after that, time doesn't stop for anyone.

But Papyrus felt silenced, caught in the moment, and it clicked. Something inside him fit together like pieces of a puzzle that had been lost too long ago.

But then you find them, dusty and abandoned between the couch cushion, and the picture can finally be complete again.

It smelled like science and tasted like starvation. It sounded like a voice from another era.

The thought came sudden and invasive and was gone almost as quickly, but it lingered like an echo on his mind.

His father always did tell him he never knows when to keep his mouth shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh what do you know, it drama time *jazz hands*
> 
> In all seriousness, thank you so much yet again for the lovely comments. They sustain me, I swear!
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (UPDATED THE TAGS! PLEASE CONSULT THEM!)

Tiny shards of glass look a lot like freshly fallen snow.

That's what Papyrus tries to focus on as he sweeps them up into his palm. He has no skin so he can't cut himself and Alex hasn't come back with a dustpan yet.

He doesn't know where the others are, where they went. He doesn't care.

Can't care because he can't think right now, only see the glistening pieces on his fingertips.

His father never threw things.

He would get mad and yell and hurt them, break them, but Papyrus can't remember him ever smashing anything in his fits of rage.

And he can remember everything now.

Well, maybe not everything, but enough to wish that he were able to forget again. People say you don't know what you had until it's gone, and he wants it to disappear forever this time.

He doesn't want these memories.

"Here, I'll help." Alex mumbles and they're on their knees next to him, tears in the corners of their eyes and Papyrus wishes he could say something to help. Something to make this better.

He can never do anything right, his father told him. The nagging voice inside suddenly has a name and Papyrus is scared.

He doesn't want to tell Sans.

He wants to push this down, bury it so deep he'll never have to think about it again. He can't do this now, not when he was just getting better. Was just getting to see a reason not to die.

It's like the reset thing all over again, he realizes. Something he can ignore with the excuse of keeping his brother save, but in the end will only prove to be a ticking time bomb.

Secrets only ever did them harm.

He looks down and his hands are wet. Alex is crying in quiet little sobs that wrench his heart and their hands are cut, small droplets of red blood mixing with the dust on his fingers, pressing into them until they hiss from the pain.

It can always wait until tomorrow.

* * *

"Do you know why I wanted to be here?" Marcus asks, and Papyrus doesn't, he doesn't know.

He barely knows why he's here himself anymore.

You'd think it's because they want help, they want to get better. But getting better only hurts.

"My father killed himself here." Marcus says, Papyrus can't tell if he means in this room or this building or anything else, just nods along without thinking.

It all hurts.

His father made him want to kill himself, sometimes. When the days got really bad.

"I thought that maybe by being here, in the same institution he used to be in, would somehow bring me closer to him but- But it didn't."

The dusk is lighted only by the tip of Marcus' cigarette and Papyrus shivers, despite not feeling any cold, boots digging into the frost on the ground.

The doctor smoked, but only on bad days.

Marcus exhales but it's too dark to even see the smoke, too dark to see his scars but Papyrus knows they're there and he's picking at them, making them bleed. "I didn't do it."

"I know you didn't." He says, but it's another lie to pretty up his collection.

Papyrus doesn't know anything.

* * *

The next day they have art therapy again, but it isn't the same anymore.

Breakfast was tense, hardly a word exchanged between them and it was so eerily reminiscent of when Papyrus used to be king.

Of sitting across from Sans at a too long dining table, surrounded by empty chairs that would never be occupied because their friends were all dead, and shoving food into his mouth because at least it would give him an excuse not to speak.

Afterwards, Papyrus went to bathroom and forced it all out, just like old times.

And now the atmosphere in this room feels strained too, tainting all the joy he would normally feel in pursuing whatever creative outlet their therapist has in mind for them this day.

He beats into the stone mindlessly instead, only seeing whatever dust trickles off and is this what Frisk saw in them? Just something to be smashed to pieces, broken down into pretty little piles of gray.

It is quite satisfying.

He has to fight every impulse wrecking his mind not to just lay his hand on the table and bring the hammer down on bone instead of granite.

Mercifully, as tempting as it is, the thought gets broken when Alex approaches his table.

"I uh- I made you something." They say quietly, eyes downcast and it's so unlike them it pains him to look at.

They're holding out a small, crudely-made paper box that is obviously just a container for whatever the real gift is. Despite everything, it still warms his soul.

Alex peeks at him from beneath too long bangs, he has been begging them to let him cut their hair for weeks now but up to now they have stubbornly refused.

Taking this as a cue that he is supposed to open the little present now, not wait until later, Papyrus folds it open with unsteady fingers.

There is some shredded paper inside, but lain on top of it, carved out of beautiful creme-colored stone, is a tiny bunny.

It's a bit rough around the edges, the details are lacking, but somehow it makes him want to bawl.

Suddenly, it occurs to him the room is empty. Art therapy is over and it's just him and Alex standing in a silent room with a carved bunny between them and their eyes are still wet, not quite crying but somewhere in between.

"Fluffy bunny." They say eventually, because Papyrus isn't speaking up and they lean on the table as if unable to stand on their own. "You uh... told me how you missed your books so-"

"Thank you." He says, because good manners are a very Papyrus thing to maintain at all times and also because he truly is thankful, somewhere deep inside beneath the pain.

He can't move though, only stare, and Alex starts biting their fingernails in a nervous habit he has tried so hard to talk them out of.

"I used to have rabbits, you know?" They say suddenly, but their voice wavers and he don't dare interrupt, don't dare ask why they're telling him this, because it is important.

"We didn't have a garden or anything, just a slab of concrete serving as the backyard, but our neighbor, he-" They clasp one hand over their mouth, try to force the words out between clenched fingers no matter how hard they come.

"He kept rabbits, in this nice little hutch. He said I could keep one there, if I came around to take care of them and stuff." They are crying now, but Papyrus doesn't touch them and they keep talking as if this is the most normal conversation in the world.

"I was seven when I got my first bunny, her name was Marshmellow. He said he would kill her if I ever told anyone about what he did to me. I was so scared, everyday I would go around and he'd be there waiting just to-." Alex wipes at their face but it is no use, everything is just wetness and snot and Papyrus stares at them still, unmoving. "By the end he didn't even need to say anything. He would just look at them and I knew."

It is like he can see it physically break inside them, something ugly that spills out to the surface and he gets up, walks around the table and holds them, crushes them to their chest so hard it hurts his ribs, probably hurts them too but Alex doesn't complain.

Just sobs harder as they cover his scarf in bodily fluids. Papyrus doesn't care.

Papyrus doesn't know anything.

But he knows they need this right now.

* * *

That night, Alex finally sleeps, insomnia temporarily chased away by the sleeping pills Sandra gave them, a good old fashioned PUUH solution.

So Papyrus lies awake instead, thinking of bunnies named Marshmellow.

He thinks of what it would feel like to crush his own skull, or to sneak up to the art therapy room, grab a hammer and simply smash a femur.

He thinks of his father, who was also always waiting. Who only needed to glance at the drills and Papyrus knew.

Who was looking for results that never came, but never stopped looking, despite their pleas.

He hopes the doctor got what he wanted in the end.

That way, at least somebody ended up happy.

* * *

He gets up eventually, because lying down feels like being strapped to the operating table all over again and damn, these things were easier when he didn't remember.

Didn't know the anxiety the dark could hold.

So he paces the hallway instead, aware that it's not really allowed but familiar enough with the routines of the night shift by now to risk it.

The sound of his feet against tile remind him of the doctor too and it makes him want to hurl.

One door is open, though no light comes from within. Papyrus approaches carefully, mindful of making too much noise but grateful of any distractions on offer.

Emma is sitting on the bed in complete darkness, with a small plastic bag clutched to her chest.

His soul has never sunk into his gut faster, like a stone he can actually feel drop to the bottom. There is nobody else in the room, Papyrus remembers. Emma isn't currently sharing with anybody, so he is a little less cautious as he opens the door.

He hovers there, like he is handling a flighty animal, holding both hands out in what he supposes must be a placating gesture to humans. He has seen people on tv do it, anyway.

"What happened?" He asks, and she doesn't startle, just keeps playing with the ends of the bag, looking at its content almost wistfully.

She doesn't answer for the longest time, and even when she does she's not looking at him. "I think Jackie accidentally left it while on her rounds. I don't know, I came back to my room yesterday and it was just... here."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" He takes one step, two. Her hands close around the bag, knuckles turning white.

"I don't know." She repeats, voice steady still, but he can see her trembling. "I just... I just thought it would be convenient, to keep around. I'm so tired of it, Papyrus. Of everything."

She raises her eyes to his then, and the emptiness there sends shivers down his spine.

"Did you take any?" He asks, and he just wants to snatch the pills from her, grab her shoulders and shake her until he can get some sense back into her.

But he's too scared to move.

"Not yet." One hand leaves the plastic to comb through her hair instead and Papyrus takes another step forwards. "I didn't mean to cause so much trouble."

"I know." He says, and she's almost within arms reach now, he just needs to stretch his hand and he's there.

When he touches her wrists she doesn't pull back and he takes that as a sign to cover her hands with his, keep them from moving.

"Let's bring them back together, ok? Tell Jackie that we found them somewhere, like you did, and that she probably just forgot them. It won't even be a lie."

Emma nods, jerkily at first but then for real and as soon as her hold loosens Papyrus takes the pills from her, throws them an angry glare as if somehow this is their fault.

"Come on." He says. She stands up, shakily, and together they go look for whatever nurse still roams the halls at night.

* * *

Tomorrow, he will call Sans and ask about their father.

Tomorrow, he will see doctor Burke and tell him what he remembered.

Tomorrow, he can start getting better all over again.

There will always be tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for more drama! Hooray for an unannounced hiatus too!!!
> 
> (jk, people who follow my tumblr know what up)
> 
> Anyway, take it, enjoy it (I hope) and thank you so much for the kudos/comments/bookmarks. They save my life!


	15. Chapter 15

Some days, the doctor wouldn't even come.

The light wouldn't turn on, but they could make their way around their room in the dark effortlessly, or Sans could tell him stories. About the outside world and the things they'd do once they'd got there. About a little house in Snowdin and the snowmen they'd built.

Papyrus didn't know what snow was (and neither did Sans) but it sounded fun when their father described it to them and he was sure it would be great.

Those days were the good days, despite the fact that the doctor not coming down also meant they got no food. He didn't mind as much, but it did make Sans awfully grumpy.

Then, they could-

"Earth to dork! Hey, are you even listening to me?"

It takes a few seconds for him to come around again and when he does, Undyne is looking at him with an expression of mixed concern and annoyance. Papyrus sits up quickly, trying to recall what his friend was telling him about, but evidently it is useless.

"If you're not feeling up to it, we can do this some other time." She says, though she's biting at her lip and it is enough of a sign for him to know she really rather get this over with as soon as possible.

"No, it's fine, I'm just... thinking about some important stuff." As far as anything concerning their father could somehow still be important.

More like a thorn in his side so old you would think it had rotten away by now.

"More important than the color of our tablecloths?" Undyne jokes, despair edging into her eyes. This kind of thing is really not her strong suit, he is more than aware of that, but it was either this or picking out dresses for the bridesmaids to wear.

Papyrus just hopes Alphys knows lime isn't his color.

"I think eggshell will work." He says, pushing the book full of samples that she has lain before him back into her direction. "It would go well with the lilies in the centerpieces and also the whites we will be using for the aisles."

She clutches him as if he has just saved her from impending doom, nearly cracking his vertebrae in the process. "I am so so freaking grateful that you are such a huge nerd."

"I am grateful that my nerd-ness has served you." Papyrus answers, half-heartedly trying to dislodge himself from her grip, before she gets the idea to give him another noogie.

Undyne laughs, but lets go. "Fine, I guess that's everything taken care of. Want to talk about the thing now?"

He looks at her in confusion. "What thing?"

"The important thing you were thinking about, Pap."

The table is covered in sheets of paper full of notes and tiny strips of fabric. There's pictures of flower arrays and color schemes and it's just all so real, so substantial. Happening in the here and now.

The wedding is in less than a month.

"Never mind." He says. "It doesn't matter anymore."

* * *

His room is surprisingly clean, all things considered. His race car bed is neatly made up, just like he left it, and his books are still sorted according to length and approximate use of vowels.

It's like Papyrus never left.

He's sitting on his desk chair, can't help twirling left and right on its axis to keep his legs occupied, while Sans decides to keep standing.

It's the ideal position to have should he choose to walk out on this conversation, Papyrus has to wonder if it was a deliberate choice.

He can't tell anymore. It feels as if he barely still knows his brother.

"You _do_ remember dad, don't you."

He didn't need to ask, there was no doubt involved in this. Sans always knows and never tells.

(Papyrus always knows and never tells too, so at least they are truly similar in that regard.)

"A little bit. Just tiny parts." Sans says, and he's already shifting his gaze towards the door. Papyrus sighs.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asks, but is unsure if the answer is worth it. If anything regarding Sans is worth it, until they are both fixed.

They can't help each other until they help themselves.

"Because I knew you didn't. And he's gone anyway, Paps. He doesn't matter anymore." Sans huffs, at least seemingly a little more at ease.

"I remember everything. What he did, why he did it." Papyrus says, and his brother seems to freeze, as if somebody pushed the pause button on the remote. "Almost everything, at least."

Sans doesn't say anything, just stares at him unmoving. Finally, he shakes his head. "I don't want to know."

"I know you don't." Not yet at least. Sans is not ready to hear this the same way Papyrus was.

Maybe someday that will change. Maybe it will never.

"I just didn't feel like lying anymore." Papyrus says, honestly. He doesn't feel like anything anymore, but definitely not lying.

"That's good." Sans says, but it isn't really. Lies protected them long enough that the thought of giving them up sounds nearly unbearable.

Papyrus pushes his feet against the floor, the chair spins and he's looking at the walls, at his desk with the neatly stacked action figures now covered in dust because there's nobody to meticulously clean them, his bookcase, half-empty because most of them have already been moved to the PUUH.

Then he's facing forward again, Sans is gone and the room is empty.

The door hasn't moved an inch.

* * *

Frisk helps him pack the rest of his stuff into carton boxes. He's not sure where they will go yet, where _he_ will go, but it has been months and he knows for sure he's not coming back here when he gets out.

Anywhere but here.

The human is very helpful when it comes to wrapping the fragile figurines into bubble wrap and stacking them neatly, careful not to damage them. Papyrus would assist, but his fingers are currently still trembling too much.

They ask him about his collection with simple gestures, raised eyebrows and pointing fingers covered in bandages. Getting out of the mountain hasn't made Frisk any less adventurous, as Toriel so ruefully lamented.

Papyrus meanwhile sorts out his books into two heaps, those he wants to keep and those that should go. Maybe Alphys would enjoy them, and otherwise he'll find somewhere to donate them. People who will cherish them as much as he did, back when the resets were still occurring.

"Oh, this?" He says, in answer to another one of the child's gestures. "It's actually the first one I ever found, back at the garbage heap in Waterfall."

Frisk smiles, turning the little plastic replica over in their hands. It is a human wearing a fancy helmet and colorful clothing, sitting in a neat looking car. It's one of Papyrus' favorites.

"Do you like it?" He asks and they nod furiously in answer, dark hair swinging around their face, and it resonates with him somewhere. There is a brightness on their face not easily found anywhere else on the surface.

"You can have it, then." He says, Frisk looks up with a questioning glance, eyes torn between accepting the offer or politely refusing. Papyrus pats their head. "It's fine, I don't need them as bad anymore. I want you to keep it."

They lean into his hand, clutching the toy to their chest, before suddenly jumping up and putting the figurine down carefully before sprinting out of the room.

Unsure what's happening, Papyrus keeps sorting through his collection. How many books on quantum theory can a skeleton need? He's definitely giving some of these away.

The pages smell vaguely of fresh snow still.

He's unsure how long it takes for Frisk to return, but when they do, they have something with them.

Papyrus recognizes it as soon as they push it into his hands. It's a snow globe.

There's a tiny little house inside, with a postbox out front and little Christmas lights decorating the roof. The windows are painted yellow, giving the impression of warm light filtering outwards.

If you squint and look at it just right, it kind of looks like his home back in Snowdin.

"Oh, where did you get this, human?" He asks, turning the small object over a few times so that tiny flecks of artificial snow rain down over the scene. Frisk simply shrugs in response.

They point to the figurine Papyrus gifted them, and then at themselves. Then, with a small grin, they outstretch their finger towards the snow globe and the skeleton holding it.

He smiles, there's a little burst of affection in his chest that barely breaks through the surface, but is definitely there. "Thank you."

And when he wraps it in bubble wrap to make sure it makes it to the unit safely, his fingers aren't trembling anymore.

* * *

Alex is leaving.

It takes a while for it to sink in, and when they tell him, quietly whispered words in the middle of the night, he doesn't bother pretending to be happy for them.

When they repeat it over breakfast, and the other patients smile, clasp their shoulder, seem so genuinely proud of their progress, Papyrus just manages to not break down.

At their going-away party that evening, he sits in the corner and fixes a grin firmly in place, just as he is supposed to do.

But now it's the morning after, they're both sitting on the worn wooden bench just outside the unit waiting for Alex's parents to come get them. Take them home.

And the world has never looked more sullen.

It's not snowing, but a thin layer of frost has made the ground its domain, painting the world in dull grey. The trees are all bare and dead, and the pond is forlorn and empty of live.

It's like everything has gone on without him, left him behind. And now Alex is leaving too.

"But I'll make sure to text you. You do have your phone around, right?" They ask, their fingers are intertwined with his in their lap and they're not wearing gloves.

Papyrus thinks they should wear gloves. Humans get cold so easily.

"I do." He answers. It's in his drawer, he just never told Sans. Found it so much easier to avoid confrontation by telling his brother he's only allowed to call using the unit's phone. Make it unable for his friends to contact hem.

He's such a liar still.

Also on their lap, held protectively beneath the other hand, is his gift.

What do you give somebody who just got out, released from a mental institution?

"It's so pretty." They mumble, turning it over, and the empty sockets stare at them. He decorated the clay with small engravings before baking it and the result does look rather nice, he must admit.

A small ceramic skull for the mantelpiece. Their first art therapy together. He still remembers how in awe they were back then, looking at him in a way Papyrus had thought nearly impossible.

And now they are leaving.

The glass door slides open and it's Jackie, bundled up in a thick coat and scarf, but her breathe still comes out in white puffs every time she exhales.

"Are they not here yet?" She asks, concern lacing her voice as she shoves both hands into her pockets.

"They're always late." Alex answers, with a little laugh and they clench his hand tighter, too tight. "They always were."

Jackie pulls her hands back out, looking left and right quickly before holding them out to them. Something wrapped in silver foil.

Alex lets go of him reluctantly, takes the offering from her and pries it open.

It's a tuna sandwich.

They chuckle, loud and fragile in the chilly air.

"Thanks, Jackie." Their voice sounds like spring starting to come around the corner. "Just what the doctor ordered."

"I know you were so annoyed about never getting these on the unit, I thought, since you're going away and all I might-" She stops talking suddenly, a weird crack in their voice, and quickly turns around and heads back inside.

Alex sighs, just barely there, before ripping the sandwich in half and giving the other part to Papyrus.

"A toast to freedom." They mock, raising the bread up slightly in a gesture he doesn't recognize.

There's a bird in one of the branches, dark against a icy blue sky, and he doesn't know what to think anymore, doesn't know if he can think at all.

"To freedom." He echoes, but doesn't take a bite.

* * *

The inside of the unit feels as cold as the outside afterwards.

The color has drained away, has been leeched until there's only gray and lime and it's like the first time he came here all over again.

Foreign and cold, like his father's lab.

The common room is empty and there are puzzle pieces spread across the table that don't look like they'd fit together anymore.

Nothing does.

Marcus is outside smoking but Papyrus can't even find the will to go and talk with him, with anybody.

He lays on his bed instead, even though it isn't technically permitted, and laments the loss of his trusty closet. The bed on the other side his stripped of sheets, horribly empty and there are no cards on the board. Nothing to remind him of the life led here, the achievements gained.

The endless nights of whispering across the room because they both couldn't sleep. Watching as Alex crawled on their knees to the bucket and he shuffled out of bed, to rub their back or get a nurse.

He pulls open the drawer on his bedside table and there it is, blinking at him lazily with unread messages from ages ago. Months ago.

Beckoning at him from another life.

There's a lot of texts from Sans, some dating back as far as Snowdin, but only ever this timeline, never others. Relief can be found in the smallest corners, sometimes.

Alphys texted him, Undyne did.

Frisk texted them as recently as the day before. The kid is a lot brighter than they seem, a lot brighter than him.

Everything is.

The phone vibrates softly against his fingers, lights up in the dark room and it's like a short-lived heartbeat. Something that brings him alive for the smallest of seconds.

He can still feel Alex wrapping their arms around him, crushing him against their chest uncaring of the vaguely uncomfortable gazes their parents were giving them.

"This isn't the end for either of us, ok?" They whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, and if he hadn't felt the dryness of their cheek he would have thought they were crying.

"I didn't let that man be the end of me. You didn't let that kid be the end of you. There's always more for us."

The phone makes another noise and he jolts aware again, frowning at the screen. Their texts are just like he imagined them, full of smileys and frowny-faces.

They're just a very Alex thing to see.

They'll come visit, they promise, and they'll even bring a proper picnic too. Tuna sandwiches and spaghetti, both their favorites.

Papyrus can't help but look forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go. We'll be back to regular two-a-week updates starting next friday. Thank the lord for some normality in my life again. (though the story is drawing close to its ending point now)
> 
> I want you guys to know, your comments mean the world to me. Every notification I get sends a little thrill of happiness to my inside. Thank you!


	16. Chapter 16

There's a definite downside to Sans having a psychologist.

Papyrus is glad his brother is getting the help he deserves and clearly needs. He's ecstatic, really. He could do without the endless psychology puns that come with it ("Does Pavlov ring a bell?") but nothing he can't deal with.

No, the downside finds itself in the fact that now, Sans is coming to the hospital as an outpatient every single Tuesday and Friday, which also means Papyrus has to see and speak to Sans every single Tuesday and Friday.

When told, Alphys asked if he couldn't just... not go see Sans? But that's not very becoming of a good sibling.

And if there is one thing Papyrus would like to avoid, it is give the impressions he is not interested in his brother's recovery.

"What did you talk about today?" Papyrus will say, every single time, and Sans will shrug and do that annoying thing where he smiles without actually smiling.

Papyrus hates it when he does that.

"Just stuff." He'll answer and then they'll walk around the corner to the pond, still devoid of ducks but now inhabited by a lovely pair of frogs that make a lot of noise for such small green animals.

They remind Papyrus of the Froggits back in the Ruins.

He tells Sans to zip up his jacket as they sit on the bench and watch the wind form ripples on the water's surface. It is nice in a way it hasn't often been between them, so that's good.

"Did you talk with them about father?" Papyrus asks today, hands clenched on his lap. They're doing knitting in art therapy this week. Maybe he can make Sans a scarf too.

A dark blue one, to match his own signature cool dude style.

"Nope. Haven't even talked about him with you, remember?" He answers, he still hasn't zipped up so Papyrus does it for him, fussing over him maybe a tad too dramatically just for old times sake.

"Do you want to?" Papyrus says next, so used to carrying conversations by himself, with himself, it's like talking to a mirror. Or a brick wall.

Sans grins at him again, but there's no humor in his expression either. He's just always smiling. "Not particularity."

"I suspected as much." There are tiny buds of green just peeking out between the dark branches. Changing seasons is still so new to them, something not found underground.

Papyrus has missed his first winter on the surface. Hasn't even celebrated giftfest this year. If that isn't depressive, Papyrus doesn't know what is.

Sometimes the bench is already occupied. A fellow patient with a visitor or somebody from the other hospital wing that they don't know.

So they'll follow the path around the pond instead, in silence, and as they go in circles so does Papyrus' mind.

The past is the past and letting go might be the only way to get forward, but that doesn't mean you can't look back once in a while.

When he looks back, there's just one thing he sees. Glaring at him like an obvious fact he can't put to rest, can't dismiss from his mind completely.

"Did you really never notice?"

Sans misses a step, slows down for a fraction of a second and Papyrus needs to alter his pace too to keep level. His brother doesn't answer for a while, seemingly mulling the question over. Is the answer really that hard to come by?

"I don't think it was that I didn't notice. Maybe it was just easier for me to see you as the untroubled kind of dude I wished you were." He says eventually, and Papyrus can't help but laugh at his wording. "Some kind of self-disillusionment."

He nods, but it makes no difference. What's done is done, after all.

* * *

Now that Alex is gone, there's a lot more time to kill, and puzzling won't cut it. It used to be great, when he was still empty and distraction was all he wanted, some logic to fill the chaos in his mind.

But these days he's just lonely. He tried texting them but they're very busy, family business, and just their stories about rehabilitating to the outside world and life, all the worry that comes with it, has him thinking how convenient it would be if he could stay at the unit forever.

He texts Frisk too, after making them promise not to tell anyone about the phone, just to ask how their school has been. Boring, so it seems, and they wish he was there.

Papyrus kind of wishes he was there too, sometimes.

He asks Jackie if it's ok to take some pencils and paper from the art therapy room and spent time drawing. The nurse considers it for a moment before deciding that should be alright, it won't make much of a mess after all.

Sitting at his usual spot, now cleared of puzzle pieces, Papyrus stares at the blank pages and scribbles sheet after sheet full. Things he remembers and things he sees right in front of him, in loose lines.

It works about as well as the puzzling did.

"I can't believe you would plagiarize me like this." Marcus remarks, sitting down on the chair across from him. "That's so rude."

"You wish." Papyrus answers, carelessly continuing his drawing. The dragon Marcus has running down his bicep in black ink, has come beautifully alive in colors on his paper. The man in question, lays his arm down on the table, hiking up is sleeve a bit to give him a better view of the tattoo.

"This is the very first one I got." He tells Papyrus while he continues drawing. "My father designed it for himself, but never got around to actually getting it before he-"

Killed himself, Papyrus knows. But there's no need to say those words out loud again.

"So I got it in his memory. My mother didn't like it, I'll say." Marcus turns his arm sideways and there's the head, tongue just peeking out between sharp fangs.

Papyrus puts down the finishing touches to the outline then takes another pencil to start working on the scales. "I think it's really nice." He says.

Marcus smiles and they sit like that for a while still.

* * *

Papyrus likes order

The pens are laid parallel to each other, arranged according to color. They're perfectly aligned with the place mat, which he then pushes even with the edge of the desk, at an approximate 3 inch distance.

He's not neurotic at all.

Dr. Burke comes in right before he decides to get up and put the entire desk straight too, since its angle to the window seems to be just off by a few degrees.

Not neurotic at all.

The doctor has brought him an offering of tests, simple sheets where he has to do nothing but tick off the boxes that speak to him most, and the anxious part of him is momentarily sated.

Until he remembers these results could change his future in some very unpleasant ways, and the apprehension comes crashing back tenfold.

"There's no need to be nervous." Burke says, in perhaps the least soothing tone ever, and Papyrus still doesn't really like him, just tolerates him as a professional.

This is it. This will decide if his recovery rate is high enough to allow him to go home soon and make responsible, well-thought out choices. Or if he gets written off as a chronically ill disaster who can barely be trusted to take care of a houseplant, doomed to a life of other people deciding everything for you.

A bit like how things used to be actually.

Except Papyrus wasn't even allowed the plant. He had a pet rock. Rocks can't die. How very convenient.

"Just tell me if you need a break at any time." The doctor says, laying the papers in front of him and sitting down at the other side of the desk with a book. Papyrus knows he won't be asking for one.

He wants to get this over with.

* * *

Afterwards, as he leaves the room, is when it suddenly crashes into him. An immediate sense of dread over everything that occurred, so intense he feels like he might need to throw up again.

He can't though, because somebody is coming down the hallway and he can't permit himself to be seen defiling the floor like that.

"Oh, that's a coincidence." Jackie says, and he can barely make out her face from behind the armful of boxes she is carrying, but Papyrus recognizes her voice. "Can you take these to the common room?"

She practically pushes them into his arms and he nearly drops them. "What are these?"

"Just some board games, puzzles, the like. We uh- actually, the nurses rounded up money to buy some new stuff. We thought it might be fun for the patients, and since _someone_ helped clean the activity cupboard, we finally had some extra space."

She winks at him mischievously and he shuffles back to the common room on auto-pilot, barely feeling the weight he's lugging around.

The others are there, Eli and Marcus and Emma, they help him put the boxes away and then they all sit on the couch and watch tv together.

The screen might as well be playing static for him, it doesn't translate.

But he cleaned the cupboard, weeks ago, and today he got to see Emma rejoice over something as simple as a chess set that wasn't missing half the pawns, so maybe that's fine too.

* * *

When Papyrus and Marco stroll into the group therapy room that afternoon, nobody else is there yet.

There's a bunch of empty chairs though, as there always are, set up in what most psychologist consider a circle.

It actually more of a U with a dot on top, as far as Papyrus is concerned.

"How many of us are there again?" he asks, watching as Marcus claims the chair closest to the exit, premeditated to make a quick escape later.

The man looks up at the ceiling, trying to recall the exact number. "Six, I believe."

"Then help me with this." Papyrus says, grabbing the chair nearest to him, and Marcus gets up with a smirk.

Payback is a bitch, or so Undyne taught him.

Ten minutes later they're all sitting innocently waiting with crossed legs when the doctor enters the room.

"Ah, you're all so early today." He comments with raised eyebrows, claiming his usual place at the head of their little group and taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes wander the room, slightly puzzled at the lack of chairs. Just six patients with no empty spaced between them.

Burke's arm moves down automatically, wrist flexing when it finds there is no flat surface beneath his hand.

The sole purpose of the chair next to him is to have a place to put his mug.

There's a short moment of confusion and Papyrus tries to keep from smiling any harder than is strictly necessary.

"Is something wrong?" Emma mumbles quietly, and Dr. Burke looks up at her distractedly, blinking a few times.

No self-respecting therapist will admit they need an extra chair to hold their coffee, as Papyrus predicted.

"Nothing." He says quickly, putting the beverage down on the ground instead, but unable to hide the slightly sour expression on his face.

Schadenfreude. Papyrus could get used to it.

* * *

There's little use to having a closet full of new games if you don't play them.

Papyrus didn't know how to play chess until Emma taught him, despite seeing it around underground, but it's not long before he has defeated practically everybody on the unit.

(He can't wait to get home and kick his brother's butt too.)

It's during one of these matches that Eli comes in with much grandeur. He's on crutches now, instead of that cumbersome wheelchair, so you can hear him coming from a mile away, not to mention he's making a theatrical display of looking as affronted as humanly possible.

"Can you go be this exhausting somewhere else? We're trying to be depressed here." Marcus comments from his spot on the couch, but Eli just rolls his eyes in answer.

He's staring at Papyrus expectantly, who can't help but inquire. "So what did they say?"

"They said I'm horrible with people." The boy blurts, throwing both arms into the air for empathize and dropping one of his crutches with a clatter.

"They did not say that." Emma chides, moving her knight to a different place on the board.

Eli sits down with a sigh. "They said I need to follow the 'social skill' course they're giving here. That basically means the same thing."

"There's a 'social skill' course?" Marcus pipes up from the other side of the room, but everybody ignores him.

"Well, you do hate people." Papyrus says, picking up a tower and sliding it to the left, removing Emma's pawn from its position. Just a few more turns and he wins again.

"I don't _hate_ people. Some of my best friends are people." Eli mutters, making Emma chuckle. "I just don't want to go alone, there will be a lot of outpatients as well."

Within a few more moves, Papyrus declares checkmate and they start collecting the pieces to reset the game. Eli is still staring at him as they do, so he turns his head. "What?"

"You should come with me." He says, eyes practically begging him to say yes.

"Bu- I'm fine with people." Papyrus says quickly, maybe a bit too quickly and it hits him like a punch to the stomach.

He is _not_ fine with people.

"Please? Please, please, please with cherries on top?" Eli starts to whine and Marcus makes another comment about him shutting up that nobody listens too.

"I'll think about it." The skeleton says quickly, regretting it as soon as it's coming out of his mouth.

He is not fine with people at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say two-a-week. I meant one, cause I suck -lays down on the ground and dies-
> 
> thank you so much for the comments and support guys, seriously <3


	17. Chapter 17

"Why do you believe me?"

It's a simple question but it has been weighing on Papyrus' mind for days now, ever since he showed his notes. There was something strained in the air as he did so, like he was passing on the burden of truth from one person to another, but in the end there had been no sense of relief.

Just the knowledge that his lying days might well be over for good this time.

Dr. Burke regards him in silence for a second, eyes squinted as if he's observing a particularly interesting subject.

Papyrus doesn't like it when he does that, it reminds him too much of the way his father looked at him. But perhaps it comes with the field, a job deformity, let's say.

"Because I'm your psychologist." The man answers, the 'it is my job to believe you' left achingly unspoken between them.

The air is chilly still, the last traces of winter seemingly reluctant to withdraw their hold upon the weather, and for the first time in very long, Papyrus thinks he can feel it.

But the doctor sighs, smiles at him. "Therefor, it doesn't matter to me if what you're telling me is the truth or not. It only matters in as far is it affects you as a person."

Though hardly the most comforting words he's ever heard Papyrus does his best to force a smile back, nodding in response.

"Besides," Burke comments rather off-handedly. "Your story is hardly unusual when compared to other instances of repressed memories. I've seen cases like this before."

It doesn't surprise Papyrus necessarily, doesn't come across as a piece of previously unknown information unexpectedly revealed to him. But it seems foreign all the same.

Something that rings true in every sense of the word, yet can't translate.

More people like him, Papyrus considers. How peculiar.

It is a feeling of comfort that doesn't leave him, even long after he descended back into the unit, filled with people not quite like him at all.

* * *

Maybe the silence bearing down upon their little room would be more intimidating if it weren't for the distant sound of yelling and a door being slammed repeatedly. Jackie seems to be doing her best to act as if the situation couldn't be more normal, but isn't convincing anyone.

"Today, we'll be having another group discussion. Does anybody have a theme they'd like to discuss with the group? Maybe something y-" Even with a raised voice, it is hard to hear her over the ruckus in the next room over.

"I'm going to fucking murder all of you!" The person responsible screams, a young woman just admitted this afternoon, followed by another slam of the door. Burke's soothing tone can be heard in response.

"I think the fact that we're all about to die would make an appropriate theme." Papyrus offers helpfully, but Jackie silences him with a look.

"Yeah, somebody is planning our imminent homicide in the next room over, that could be important." Marcus agrees and she gives him the same treatment.

A chair crashes against the wall, loudly, but there are heavier footsteps making their way down the hallway, signaling imminent reinforcement.

There's a brief struggle that ends in a heavy thud. Moments later Dr. Burke makes his way into the room.

His hair is standing up at weird angles, like he just came out of bed, and one cufflink is suspiciously undone, but he smooths both hands down his face and dismisses Jackie with a simple gesture before taking his usual seat. (The chair that serves as a coffee table had mysteriously reappeared overnight.)

"Right, I'm sorry for the little diversion there. Have we decided upon a theme already?" He asks airily, as if nothing important happened at all.

Just another day on the PUUH.

* * *

The young woman's name is Sophia and she just so happens to be sleeping at the same spot Alex used to occupy.

Which Papyrus normally wouldn't mind, Sophia is actually really nice when she is not tearing down the room. A forceful commitment will that to people, he noticed.

She has curly black hair and a skin tone much darker than Papyrus is used to seeing in humans, and she loves to cook, just like him.

They talked about spaghetti and different spices and Sophia showed him pictures on her phone of a garden she tends to herself, which grows all sorts of vegetables. It was all very impressive.

Less impressive is the fact that Sophia can only properly sleep with the radio turned on. And Papyrus prefers the refreshing sound of the complete absence of noise.

"Right..." Sarah mumbles sleepily, stifling a yawn in her hand as she lets her eyes roam the room schedules upon their marker board.

Papyrus shuffles from foot to foot in the entrance way of the nurses station and patiently waits for them to offer him a solution.

When she comes over he gets into the hallway quickly, trying to repress a small chuckle. "You all did tell me I needed to learn to ask for help and stop trying to solve all my problems by myself..."

Sarah's face remains straight for about 3 whole seconds before she loses composure, trying to quieten down her laughter so they don't wake any other patients. "You're not wrong, I'll give you that."

They walk down the hallway into another corridor, one where Papyrus barely ever comes. He raises a brow, but Sarah does stop before the nearest door, opening it and gesturing for the skeleton to wait.

She disappears into the direction of the linen closet, only to come back empty handed.

"So we do have a little problem-" She starts, but before the sentence fully made it out of her mouth, Papyrus has taken off for his old room. Careful not to wake his new roommate, he bundles up the cushion and blankets into his arms and returns to Sarah's amused expression.

"That should work." She says. "Mrs. Theodore is a heavy sleeper, so you won't need to be concerned with waking her."

"Thank you." Papyrus says quickly, grateful to finally get some rest.

* * *

It's two hours later and Papyrus is dully reminded of something Marcus told him ages ago. That the PUUH is like a hellhole one doesn't escape.

And now, he believes there might be some truth to that.

Mrs. Theodore is a heavy – and soundless - sleeper. She does, however, own a very robust, very old looking clock, with tiny copper legs. It stands on her bedside table and is absolutely determined to announce every passing second with a nice, resounding cling.

60 times per minute. 3600 times per hour.

It has inconvenienced Papyrus from falling asleep 7263 times now, and did he not have an inherent respect for other people's possessions as well as the elderly residents, the clock would be out the window and somewhere in the garden by now.

But being the more civilized person that he actually is, and also lacking the energy to actual get up to go back to the nurses station and complain again, Papyrus lays awake instead.

At least it's easier to count the seconds like this and while the time away.

* * *

It could be nice.

That's what Papyrus keeps telling himself, over and over again. And maybe eventually he'll be able to convince himself.

It could be nice, with a bit of work. Some paint and maybe a houseplant or two. All his stuff on the shelves and his books in the case now standing empty in the corner. With some effort, this might just feel like home.

Maybe not _his_ home, but _a_ home, and for now that would have to be good enough. The alternative, going back to live with Sans in a house achingly similar to their Underground one, was too much to bare.

And this apartment is a lot closer to the university anyway.

"When are you actually going to apply?" Alphys quietly asks, busying herself with some dust on the windowsill while Papyrus opens the kitchen cabinets, judging the amount of room held within.

"I'm not sure yet." He says, and from the corner of his eye he can see Alphys turn her head to look at him shyly. "I just need to fill out some papers and send them in."

Psychology and social studies. They've been in his possession for days now, but he hasn't touched them yet.

"What are you waiting for then?" Undyne is all but tearing off a piece of loose wallpaper, but Papyrus ponders it can only help. The place needs some serious work, indeed.

She moves over to stand behind her girlfriend – soon to be wife – and Alphys leans into her contentedly. Undyne looks down fondly and wipes the dust of her hands. For a moment, Papyrus feels like he's invading on something too personal for him to witness so he looks away quickly.

"I don't know." He says, but he does. As long as the application remains empty, he is in a comfortable limbo of waiting for his release form.

Puzzling and drawing and watching tv and going to therapy. Wheeling Eli around to social skill courses so he can learn not to be a dick to people (and Papyrus can learn to not lie so much. It's a work in progress.)

As long as the application remains empty there can be neither acceptance nor refusal. And that is a satisfying uncertainty to live with, he must say.

Regardless, Undyne has very different opinions.

"What are you waiting for?" She repeats sternly. "A gift-wrapped invitation? Come on, Papyrus, I know you." Her eyes are fierce, they've been like that all day now. Something proud but also melancholic that reminds him of days long past.

Papyrus knows she is worried for him.

"I'll do it tonight." He promises, aware that she won't be able to know for certain anyway. She'd never know if he was lying again.

Her hand comes down hard on his shoulder, but it is reassuring in its familiarity and she hasn't changed at all, has she? "Don't worry, they won't refuse a nerd like you."

And her laugh is loud and boisterous, filling the room and making it feel a bit more like home already.

* * *

Afterwards, they go to Toriel's house and have tea and cake.

Frisk shows Papyrus how they got a perfect grade on their latest test and how it now gets displayed on the fridge like a badge of honor.

They ask him about where he is going to live and if they can come have a sleep-over sometime. It are the kind of words that almost make the future seem bearable.

Afterwards, all of them get on the couch to watch Mettaton's newest show.

It gives him a sense of comfort, were it not for the obvious absence in the room.

"Is Sans quite well?" The Queen asks him, just as they're preparing to leave to get back to the hospital and there is a concern on her face that makes Papyrus feel caught of guard.

"He's fine. He just..." The words feel like a betrayal somehow, though he wouldn't know to who. "He just didn't want to come."

She nods with the kind of understanding that is expected of her and Papyrus decides not to mention his brothers anger. His scoffs and his dismissal.

Papyrus is going away, leaving Sans behind, because somewhere deep down they make each other miserable without wanting to.

"He will come around." Toriel says, as if reading his thoughts. "Allow him some time to adjust."

He nods. If there's anything they have plenty of, it's time.

* * *

"You wanna come watch this?" Eli asks him, when he comes back to the unit that evening. The boy gestures to the television screen with his crutch, narrowly avoiding hitting Emma's face in the process. "It's a documentary about deforestation in South-America. Exciting stuff."

For a second, Papyrus considers agreeing, just to ward away the sadness that always washes over him after an outside visit.

But he also know the outside visits won't be just visits for long anymore. There are some things he can't run away from.

"Not tonight. I still have some paperwork to fill out."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO WROTE AN ENTIRE CHAPTER AND FORGOT TO POST IT???
> 
> .....
> 
> it was me, i did that
> 
> Anyway, I'm back from visiting my girlfriend in Denmark. HOORAY
> 
> As always, thank you for all the kudos and comments. Bless you guys <3


	18. Chapter 18

"I'm leaving." He tells them, and he doesn't even stutter.

There is no hesitation besides the idle clench of his fist, something deep inside him that proclaims a choking doubt. Tries to convince him still, that he is on a one-way street to crash and burn.

He has finally found contentment in life and the world can't wait to snuff it out again.

But they're incredibly happy for him. Leaving has always been their goal, all of them just waiting to get out.

He is so terrified of the outside world, their happiness doesn't touch him the way it should.

Then again, Papyrus is sick of being scared. Done with running away.

He wants to linger this time.

* * *

Papyrus isn't really big on photographs.

Besides obviously lacking the equipment to properly take them underground, there is also something uncomfortable to capturing a moment in such a permanent way.

The surface shiny and fake and the smiles frozen in time. Like tangible illusions you can take out of your pocket to drown in at will.

Sans likes photographs, because of course he does.

The air is warm, not uncomfortably so, but nice and heavy like a blanket wrapped around their shoulders. Marcus has his feet propped up on the table, a cigarette dangling from his lips and the smoke seems almost too light, disappearing before really being there in the first place.

Papyrus doesn't know where the others are, maybe inside watching TV or in the communal kitchen burning the unit down, but for now he doesn't care.

For now there is only the fireflies in garden and the silence between them.

And for once, Papyrus genuinely wishes he could capture this moment forever. Get lost in it.

"Are you nervous?" Marcus asks lazily. Papyrus almost asks him how he knew, but the continual jiggling of his leg probably gave him away.

"A little bit." He watches the smoke and tries to see the shapes within, the patterns dispersing against dark sky, but it's hard to concentrate. "It's about Sans."

"It's always about Sans." Marcus says, not a reprimand per se but a factual observation and Papyrus is inclined to agree.

At the end of things, everything has always been about Sans, hasn't it?

But he doesn't say anything. There's crickets in the grass and their sound is soothing, white noise to the moment, but unlike anything he had back in Snowdin. More peaceful than that place could ever been.

For as much as he loved it, cherished the snow and the giftfest and the cavern walls. It would always remain a prison to them.

In more ways than one.

"I told you I was the oldest of four, right?" Marcus is playing with the cigarette pack in his hands, and his gaze doesn't lift to meet Papyrus.

The air feels just a little colder now.

His fingers pry at the edges of the pack, open and close it a few times as if considering something. At last, he pulls out a small piece of paper and tosses it across the table.

Papyrus picks it up and unfolds it carefully, smoothing out the creases with his fingers, but they stay like perpetual shadows across the picture, cutting it in four.

The colors are bleached out and there are a few tears along the sides, but her smile seems as real as ever.

"My sister." Marcus says softly. His hands come up to make some kind of gesture but fall uselessly into his lap once more. "She died when I was 14."

The girl in the photograph couldn't be much older than Eli, Papyrus muses, with long blonde hair that curls around her full face and light, lively eyes that are the same as Marcus'.

She is absolutely stunning.

"What happened?" Papyrus asks, not sure if that's an appropriate question but unable to look away from her face.

"Car accident." Marcus answers, and he pushes the cigarette into his palm to extinguish it, hisses at the burn. It leaves an angry red mark and he stares at it in something like satisfaction. "Some drunken ass too cheap to get a taxi. June was walking home from a friend's house. She didn't stand a chance."

There's the sound of a car rushing by somewhere beyond the wall of their little sanctuary, but neither moves. Papyrus folds the picture back up carefully, handing it to his friend as if it were a sacred relic. Marcus smiles when he pushes it back into its place.

"Two weeks later I did my first shot." he says matter-of-factly and that's the end of that.

* * *

Next thing he knows the big day is already here. The flowers look lovely and the trees are decorated with chains of colorful paper cranes he has been working on for weeks now. Toriel made a cake that is almost bigger than the table it's supposed to reside upon.

Papyrus doesn't think he has ever seen Undyne wearing white before, but when Asgore leads her down the aisle of scattered yellow petals, courtesy of Frisk themselves, he thinks she has never looked more determined.

The ceremony is short and down to the point, just the way the brides like it, and when they kiss Mettaton cries a little bit.

Papyrus just feels like his soul will burst.

Sans takes pictures of the entire thing, long after people tell him to stop and enjoy the moment, and Papyrus smiles for every single one of them, without even having to force it.

He wonders if they notice the difference, but doesn't think it matters if they do.

* * *

Afterwards, he is sitting on the grass with a tree at his back and Frisk on his lap, facing him. They want him to show them how to fold the cranes so Papyrus does.

Then, he folds a yellow flower for them and they giggle as if somehow it's funny. Maybe it is, he wouldn't know.

They ask him if he misses Flowey and Papyrus answers with the truth, because that's the entire point of this. Of everything. Frisk nods and bites their lip like they did underground when they had killed somebody the previous run. Undyne or Toriel or even him, like they can't look him in the eye anymore. Like they've done something wrong.

Like they're undeserving of his love.

Flowey kind of looked like that too, sometimes.

Together, they fold paper into flowers until they have a whole bunch. Then, Papyrus weaves them into their hair with deft fingers, much like the electrical wires of his puzzles back home, crossing the dark chocolate-colored strands with care.

Frisk leans against him, warm and alive and it kind of makes him weary, but he doesn't know why. There is a danger in them that he won't understand. None of them ever truly will.

When he's done they ask him how they look, twirl in a circle for him to appraise, and the yellow petals catch the sunlight perfectly, sitting like a crown upon their head.

He tells them they look beautiful.

They run over eagerly to show Asgore, who also loves flowers so, and the king hesitates when they come to him, startles at the sight as if caught unawere. His eyes are sad and tired with memories long past and when Frisk looks concerned he brushes it off, taking their offered hand.

Papyrus misses Flowey a lot. Misses him more than anything else.

Maybe Flowey misses him too.

* * *

On the other hand, it's probably better that he doesn't know. Better if he doesn't imagine how his best friend could still be alive down there. Alone.

Buried beneath layer upon layer of rock and mud and grime. Haunting the ghost of cities they once build, the home that was never truly a home.

All alone forever.

* * *

Despite everything, it's still Alex.

Their eyes seem brighter, their hair curlier, but at the end it is still them.

Their hands dart around restlessly, itching something fierce, and Papyrus wants to hold them just like old times, but isn't sure if he can. They are cured. Out.

And he isn't. Almost, but not yet.

He is scared of somehow tainting them again.

"He's gone." They tell him, urgently, making the table shake between them. Papyrus holds that instead, but it is a poor substitute.

"He's gone, Pap." They repeat. "Proclaimed guilty, that motherfucker. As well he should be."

Then they grab his hands of their own volition, squeeze them so hard he can feel the bones grinding into each other and rests their elbows on the table.

"It's over." They mumble against his bones. small and scared, like the child they might once have been. The child that man destroyed.

"Was it hard?" Papyrus asks sincerely, and he squeezes back just to make sure Alex knows.

They sigh. "Seeing the pictures was.. the hardest part. They're just- they're fucking horrible Papyrus."

He can't even imagine it. Can't imagine the child Alex used to be, the child in those photographs, innocence smeared across the frame in the most perverse way possible.

Some memories are better left forgotten.

"So what was your good news?" They ask, wiping away the not-quite tears in their eyes and sitting back, letting go of his hands. Papyrus has to try and think back to the phone call to remember what he wanted to tell them in the first place.

"Right, though I believe it might be a bit underwhelming after yours." He confesses awkwardly, fingers brushing over the papers in his lap.

"That's fine, tell me anyway." Alex runs one hand through their reddish strands in a motion so recognizable to him it actually manages to put him at ease.

"Well, it seems that I got into the university of my choice." He puts the papers on the table like a shield, unsure what that would even accomplish.

It doesn't really stop the excited flurry that inevitably comes his way.

"I'm so proud of you!" They manage eventually, after calming down a bit. "Proud, but not really surprised. We already knew you were basically a genius."

It is made to sound almost off-handedly, but Papyrus feels something inside him stutter. Not time as a whole, but his soul maybe.

"You really think so?"

Alex lowers their brow, pursing their lips with a smirk. "You know I'd never lie to you."

Papyrus doesn't think those kind of people exist. The kind that never ever lie, especially when it comes to him.

But he wants to believe it's true, so he does.

* * *

He calls Sans later that evening, with his own cellphone this time.

He is sitting on the bed in his room and Sophia stepped out for a bit when she saw him taking out the phone. She is nice like that.

It rings 5 times before his brother answers and once more Papyrus can't help but wonder what he is doing. What this surface life is like for him.

If Sans misses him at all.

"Bro, is something wrong?" The voice on the other side asks him and Papyrus feels the bitterness in his throat that has been a staple lately of talking to Sans.

Something vile lives inside him, deep down but undeniably there, but nobody will believe him when he tells them. Papyrus can be more spiteful than anyone and he hates it.

"No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to confirm something." He sighs, already tired of the conversation without properly starting it. "I want to know if you have a photograph of our father?"

Papyrus expects denial. Silence or maybe some kind of evasive answer. Instead, without missing a beat, he hears Sans again from the other end of the receiver.

"I think I do."

"You think?" Papyrus repeats, immediately realizing it is a stupid question.

"It's probably him, I mean..." Sans says softly and Papyrus can feel the guilt like a painful wave in his head, a reproach for his curtness. He loves his brother so, so much it hurts sometimes. And sometimes he doesn't.

"No, it's fine-" He says quickly, hoping his voice sounds normal enough. "I need to see it, that's all."

"Of course." Sans says, like it's a given, and Papyrus doesn't point out it's not that straightforward at all. In fact, it's very, very not.

"Thank you." He says finally, sighing a bit. Neither of them say anything for a few seconds there, the silence doesn't fill itself. It gapes between them still.

But it doesn't hurt Papyrus the way it used to.

"Alright, see you on Tuesday then." Because he can't sit here staring at the wall and listen to nothing much longer.

"See you on Tuesday." Sans confirms, and then, just as Papyrus is about to press the 'end call' button, almost too quite to hear. "Love you, Pap."

He is a horrible brother. For a tiny second it crosses his mind, just to pretend he didn't hear anything and break the connection. Spiteful.

"I love you too, Sans." He says instead, and takes a mental picture of this very moment, so he may remember it forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When will my updates ever be consistent again? I don't know, probably never because I suck >.>'
> 
> Thanks for the comments everyone, you guys are the real MVP!


	19. Chapter 19

No matter how long he stares at it, it's just a face.

Papyrus tries to see it, a resemblance to himself so strong that it would connect the pieces, make things whole again. But there's really nothing there.

His memories of their father have always presented themselves blindly, in the form of sounds or smells or pain. Rarely is vision a part of the disconnected fragments his past has laid before him.

And this isn't any different.

Nor the shiny surface of the photographs, nor his apparently self-drawn picture of an imaginary 'happy family' ring any bells.

'Don't forget' is written beneath it in a childish hand, and that's exactly what they did.

"Are you sure it's him?" He asks, hating how fragile his voice sounds even to himself, and Sans glances at the picture as if it will jump out of his brother's hand and bite him somehow.

As if the doctor can still hurt them after all this time.

"As sure as we can be about anything." He mumbles, gripping the sleeves of his hoodie with restless fingers. Papyrus doesn't know how any of this should make him feel anymore.

He wants to put the photo down, let it be covered in dust and grime, wipe out everything it represents until even time forgets completely, just like they did, like everyone did. But he hesitates.

"Can I have this?" Firmer now. Already feeling the paper bend beneath his fingertips.

"Yeah, I don't see why not." His brother answers and turns around, closes the album he kept hidden all those years in a not-so-hidden lab.

Papyrus never liked to pry in his brothers possessions, it's not very polite, and Sans granted him the same courtesy. Turning a blind eye to everything.

He pushes it into a pocket, doesn't care if it creases, and then he opens his arms and engulfs Sans within them, feels their bones press against each other just like old times.

But nothing like how it used to be.

"Remember I told you it was fine? That we are going to be fine?" He says, and he is staring at the wall but it's like he can feel his brother's very soul, warm and alive. They're both still alive.

Despite everything, it's still them.

"I remember." Sans says, and he is squeezing as hard as he can, but it's not a lot, because Sans isn't very strong.

He is weak in every way imaginable and all Papyrus ever wanted to do with his life was protect him.

"Good." He doesn't want to let go but he has to, has to look at something else than that damn wall and that stupid album and the fucking back of a fluffy hoodie. "Good. Because it's true. We're going to be fine."

Everything is going to be fine.

* * *

He declines the queen's offer to drive him back to the hospital, says that a walk will be just what he needs to clear his head.

But it's another lie, because it's already clear. Maybe even empty.

The air is warm and humid and vibrant with the sound of insects in the grass. Summer is right around the corner, Papyrus can feel it.

He stops at the pedestrian bridge over the train tracks, looks at the sharp rails beneath and grips the fence between him and the drop. One feet poises itself on the bottom automatically, easily. Like it belongs there.

There's a light in the distance, a soft glow of yellow coming towards him unbearably slow and then faster and faster. The noise of several tons of steel hurling itself forward at high speed, a pinnacle of human machination.

And just what you need to break every single bone in your body in one fell swoop.

There's three dots of white now, the train close enough to distinguish the different headlights and the brick-red color of the wagons and all Papyrus would need to do is lift his other leg.

Make everything fine for sure.

He doesn't though, doesn't move an inch. The lights disappears beneath the bridge and for a while his mind is filled with the thundering noise of a train and a simple thought.

If he does it now, there's still time. There's still time, there's still time, there's still time...

Time's up.

The light at the back of the train is red instead of white and Papyrus watches as it careens away from him, fast at first, then slower, until it blinks a few times before disappearing completely. The silence that descends around him is deafening.

He pulls the photograph out of his pocket.

The doctor looks more like him than Sans, tall and proud and with deep set sockets that crack around the edges.

And no matter how hard he tries, Papyrus can't remember him at all. He can remember the hunger. He remembers the tests and the strain and the cracking of bones. But he can't remember this monster staring back at him.

He rips it into four clean pieces instead, right down the middle, as has always been a talent of his.

Then, he tosses those over the edge of the railing and leaves before they even hit the ground.

* * *

"So you'd be signing up for the out-patient treatment program, 5 days a week-"

"2 days." Papyrus corrects her, sitting up straighter in his chair, trying with all his might to look confident but not cocky. Just the right amount of nonchalance without coming across as unbelievable. Or worse: delusional.

"2 days...? are you sure?" Doctor Miller says distractedly, hand reaching for his file and Papyrus smirks, knows that all she will find in there is confirmation.

"I'm having classes on the other days." He clarifies, and watches her face scrunch up in confusion, before finding doctor Burke's notes. Her eyes dart across the written lines, pursed lips and a barely there frown, for a fast second.

Then she lays the papers down and faces him again.

"Very well." She sighs, as if resigning to something not particularly annoying, but rather inconvenient all the same. "What about housing arrangements?"

Papyrus has to try not to smirk even harder, almost giddy now. "It's all taken care of."

She nods, consulting the file once again, making a few notes here or there. "You'll be living alone?" There's some degree of skepticism in her voice.

"I have a roommate." He answers, resisting the urge to point to where it say exactly that on the document, but realizing it's all part of the test. Part of some concocted way of making sure he can keep it all straight.

Not mess up again.

"Your brother?" Miller asks, and Papyrus nearly laughs.

Nearly but not really.

There might have been a time where the prospect of not sharing a home with Sans would be too much to bear. A time where everything was empty and bare and the thought of losing his brother, losing the final part of himself that still made some sense, the only thing that was a constant in the raging waters that made up his life, was more than he could stand.

That time is long gone.

"It's just an old friend." He says and Miller nods, ticks a final box on the bottom of the paper. It's liberating to say the least.

"Right, that's all in order." She shuffles them into a neat heap, closes the cover and lays both hands on top. There is something like finality in her motions. "looks like you'll be leaving us soon."

Papyrus stretches out a hand and she seems surprised, but takes it anyway. "Looks like it." He says, and feels no fear.

* * *

There have been a lot of rules on the PUUH starting from day one. And there are a considerable amount of rules regarding leaving as well. A true obstacle course of red tape and formalities. Everything arranged into the smallest possible detail.

Emma stays quite and Marcus has his face drawn tight, trying to smile for him, but obviously having a hard time at it. Even Eli is a great deal less theatrical than usual.

But Papyrus knew this was part of it.

Similar to how he felt when Alex left, or even Paige, the happiness they feel on his behalf is edged with a reluctant kind of sadness. Worry about how he'll fare out there, grief at losing him, maybe even envy for not being the ones leaving.

Papyrus remembers a distinct feeling of abandonment.

"It's all been approved, it won't be longer than a week or so." He tells them.

With a tight nod, Emma looks at him and smiles, genuinely, but her eyes don't lie. Papyrus sits next to her and she leans into him. "We'll miss you."

"I know." He says. "But I'll come by to visit."

"That's not the same." Eli almost pouts, arms crossed and the crutches are gone now too, nothing left to remind him of his close brush with death except a slight limp he probably will never quite grow out of.

Papyrus can't deny that it will be different, just like Alex coming to visit him was a meager substitute for sharing an actual room. But he'll still understand their lives better than any outsider ever will, after sharing it with them for so long.

You can take a patient from the mental unit, but you can't take the mental unit out of the patient.

And that evening, they find comfort in this knowledge. The fact that somehow, they will always be connected as more than strangers, more than friends. Just an ill-fitting family of weirdos.

And Papyrus wouldn't want it any other way.

* * *

After all these months, it seems to him that the creative therapy room is simply unable to be anything but an oasis of quiet and order.

The lighting is soft, slanting through the windows pleasantly with a warm glow that simply makes you want to express your inner most thoughts and feelings. Lene has done a fine job with making it just the right amount of cozy, yet still functional.

Papyrus will miss spending time here.

He looks between the brownish manila folders until he finds the one with his name on it. It is filled with drawing after drawing of fellow patients, the garden outside, still-lives from things he remembered from underground.

A charcoal likeness of a lab with broken vials dripping red and dark eyes peering from the corner. A field full of dying flowers with an abandoned throne and a broken crown.

He clutches them to his chest and breathes.

"Do you want to take this one home as well?" Lene asks behind him, holding the painting he did in his first ever session here, spatters of gray and yellow, but Papyrus shakes his head. It reminds him too much of the best friend he won't see anymore.

She hangs it back on the wall instead, straightening it neatly, almost fondly.

"When you look back on your time as a patient here, how do you feel about it? Would you say it was beneficial?" Lene suddenly asks.

Papyrus isn't certain if she means just his time in creative therapy, or the accumulation of all the time he spend at the PUUH together, but he mulls it over in his mind for a bit.

"I'm glad I came here, of course." He says, and means it. He might not have still been around otherwise, he doesn't add.

"Actually, what was I like to have as a patient?" He asks with a small grin. He's not sure what he should expect to be the answer, if he'll even get one at all, but he turns around and looks at Lene as she in turn thinks for a few seconds on a response.

She smiles. "Difficult." She decides, and Papyrus can't help but be surprised. It must show on his face, because she elaborates.

"As a therapist, there wasn't really much we could do with you in the beginning. You would follow my instructions to a t, ridiculously so at times." She throws him a look that makes him laugh. "But you always closed yourself off. It was hard to get to you."

Papyrus nods in understanding, unable to disagree with her.

"Honestly, you were the only one I was always worried about." She adds after a second. "If I was even going to see you again after each weekend."

He startles, grips the folder even tighter until he feels like it might tear in two right then and there, but doesn't say anything.

All this time, he was worried about the exact same thing.

* * *

He took the postcards down from his board already, wrapped the jar of colored sand and the snow globe both in paper, to reduce their chances of breaking during travel.

"I'm coming home." He told Frisk, and remembers their face just as he said that. Remembers how important this is.

How important it is that he doesn't screw this up.

The room looks empty, and for the first time in months, Papyrus can see the depressing quality it had the first time he came here. The nauseating combination of gray and green that put him off when he initially arrived here. The coldness of this room, dead and empty.

He knows better now, and hopes the next person to come here will too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter... We've come a long way.
> 
> I'm still playing with the idea of making one of my other works the sequel to this one, but we'll see.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments, they're wonderful!


	20. Chapter 20

"Dr. Burke is coming." Eli says, using a crutch as support to sit up straight in his chair and inclining his head towards the door. The sound of footsteps in the hallway.

Papyrus listens closely for a moment. "No, that's Jackie." He says calmly.

It's his last group therapy... ever, and it feels absurd to say the least.

"How do you know?" Sophia asks, dark eyes shining with amusement and he shrugs.

"I can hear the difference."

True to word, whomever is walking down the hallway passes their door and disappears down the other side. Marcus chuckles.

After months of lying awake in the dark, restlessly listening to any sound the unit makes, Papyrus has become more than accustomed to these noises. Marcus wears heavy leather shoes, Doctor Miller wears neat, professional heels, Jackie wears muffled-sounding worn out flats... The list goes on.

Again, the heavy door at the end of the hallway opens. "Now it's Burke." Papyrus says.

Eli looks at him in confusion as the rhythmic ticking of heels against a linoleum floor grows louder and louder. The boy opens his mouth, one corner already pulled up in a sarcastic sneer, when the door to their small therapy room opens.

"Sorry I'm late." The doctor says curtly, straightening his back as he properly enters the room. "I just needed to get some last paperwork done."

Nobody responds, all eyes downcast to the stylish dress shoes Burke is wearing, and the solid heel attached to it. Papyrus can barely contain his laughter at the awed expressions on their faces, and the confused one the doctor has.

He's sure he's going to miss this place.

* * *

It's warm, sweltering in fact, and Marcus wears short sleeves like any sane person in this heat. Papyrus isn't sure when he stopped noticing the scars on his friend's arms, scratched into his skin.

But he notices them now.

"So tomorrow, you'll be home." Marcus says, casually, but it strains in his voice. Makes it sound thin and fragile.

Papyrus nods, he takes the pack of cigarettes off the table, with the picture, the root of all tragedy. Of all the drugs and pain.

"Back to your old life." Marcus looks at him, tries to smile.

"Not back." Papyrus defies. "Forward. On to something... different."

He doesn't know to what exactly. But not back, that's for sure.

The last group sessions had been slightly disconnected for Papyrus, unreal even. It is hard to imagine all the months he spend here are slowly winding down to a closure. To a departure from the save, into the world.

A world that has, so far, mostly hurt him and all those he cares about.

Doctor Burke asked him to wish something, something positive mind you, for all his fellow group members. Papyrus only had to think a few second before he knew.

For Sophia he wished the small cottage in the middle of nowhere she always wanted. Enough space for six cats and a garden full of fruits and veggies.

For Eli, all he wanted was some patience, some understanding. And a new car.

Emma would benefit, in his opinion, from some more self-confidence. The knowledge that she truly is an amazing person with amazing thoughts and amazing skills and Papyrus wishes she would just see that.

She smiled at that, shyly and he could see in her face that she didn't believe him.

His eyes moved on the the last person in their little circle, slumped down in his chair as if a physical weight was pulling him down. Eyes full of tiredness and suspicion and Papyrus didn't know what to say to Marcus. His first friend and the only one he isn't sure can ever be fixed.

The one who was here when Papyrus arrived, and now will be here when he is long gone.

There is so little Papyrus can do for him.

"For you, all I'd want is an eraser." He said then, and the others kind of laughed at that, awkwardly. But he went on undisturbed. "Something to wipe away your past so you can finally move on to the future."

Marcus didn't raise his head and Papyrus might have been mistaken but his eyes seemed kind of damp.

Now, fading sunlight caught on the green leaves, the flowers in their little humble garden in full bloom with the promise of summer, Marcus seems so much older than ever before.

So much more broken.

"It's too bad you're leaving." He says, the corners of his mouth pulling up into a vague smile. "It will be a lot more boring around here without you."

Somebody screams inside, the nurses are heard rushing to placate them. Papyrus laughs.

"I really doubt so." he says.

In fact, everything will be just right.

* * *

He goes to bed and he sleeps and he wakes up and suddenly it's there. The morning he'll be leaving.

Ever since a few days nurses and staff have been coming to him at all odd hours of the day to say goodbye. The weekend shift, the nights shift and now...

They sit around the breakfast table in eerie silence. "It will be weird when you're gone." Emma mutters and Papyrus feels soul grow tighter in his chest.

"I won't really be gone... just, upstairs." He shrugs, but he knows it's not the same. Being an outpatient will never be the same.

All these people, who he has shared everything with over the past few months, showed a side of himself to he never showed anyone, a side he might not have known existed if it wasn't for this place, will be gone.

He'll have to do it on his own. But for once, Papyrus truly believes he can.

* * *

And then he's standing in the hallway with packed bags (actually just one bag, Papyrus didn't bring much) and he is waiting for somebody to come. He does 't know who, he can't remember. His mind is blank. Not the sad blank, but the contented one. The blankness you get when you know for sure that everything will wind up fine.

Marcus and Eli both shook his hands, a gesture Papyrus still doesn't quite get but seemed to please them, and Emma pulled him close to her chest for a few seconds.

They're gone now, doing god knows what and it sinks in then that papyrus won't be a part of their lives anymore. He might see them, visit them, catch little snippets of their recovery when he comes in for the outpatient program. But he won't be _here_ anymore.

The doors open and it's Undyne. Papyrus sighs in relief, knowing the confrontation with his brother can be postponed a bit longer.

Her smile is sharp, all teeth and she takes the bag from his hands without even asking, lifting it like it weighs nothing. One of her arms falls around his shoulders casually, like it belongs there and Papyrus didn't realize how much he missed her. How long it's been.

"Come on nerd, it's time to go home." She says lightly, and he knows it is.

* * *

Of course everybody is waiting for him, and he gets swept away in the excitement a little bit, he must admit.

He doesn't think about how hard it will be, getting used to everyday life and going back so often to talk about how horrible it sometimes is. Not now at least.

Toriel decided that pie just wouldn't cut it for this celebration, something bigger was in order, and she made spaghetti instead.

Papyrus doesn't tell anybody this is the first time he's tasted it, but he's pretty sure it's a lot better than anything he ever cooked up anyway. He loves it.

Frisk doesn't leave his side all evening, holding his hand through it all and they show him they kept the flowers he folded for them at the wedding. They tell him they're happy that he is back, and Papyrus is happy to be back too.

This is where he belongs.

The elation gradually dies down. Asgore politely takes his leave, promising to come visit Papyrus at his new abode soon, and Alphys falls asleep on the couch with her head in Undyne's lap.

Papyrus sits on the steps of the front porch waiting for his new roommate to come pick him up.

Only then does Sans sit down next to him.

They lean into each other instinctively, huddled together as if shielding each other from the Snowdin cold, but it's warm out tonight. They just do it because they want to.

Papyrus doesn't want to say anything because it would ruin the moment, but he knows how his brother loves verbal affirmation. Something tangible of his presence.

Just _being_ can never be enough for Sans.

"Nothing has really changed has it?" He asks. Even after all this time, he still can't believe it has.

"I guess not." Sans agrees at first, then shakes his head. "We've changed though, haven't we?"

Papyrus can't answer that for sure. He wants to, but he can't. He's not as gullible as before. "Maybe."

They're silent for a while when Sans pushes his elbow into his brother's ribs, jabs him almost playfully. "Well, what did you get out of it?"

What did Papyrus get?

He has suffered and he has grieved and he has been broken, in pain, empty. He has been so vacant of everything that death seemed like the only solution, the only way to make it stop. He has embraced the fact that nothing he ever does will amount to anything.

And then he has challenged all those things to prove they're wrong.

But in the end, what _did_ he get out of it?

"I'm alive." He says.

That's what he gets.

* * *

The news reaches him nearly a week later and for a second it all falls apart. All the careful bridges and support he build up crumbling to dust once again.

Marcus is dead. Suicide.

The print is fine, neatly typed in black and white and the letter is just a formality. Something send out to all family and friends and Doctor Burke had been considerate enough to forward it to Papyrus.

At the very bottom, almost as an afterthought, the next of kin had written a short note of thanks to all the professionals that tried to help Marcus over the years. And their regret, that despite their best effort, he had been beyond help.

It made Papyrus sick just reading that. It made him angry and downhearted and he knew nobody out here would understand.

He almost throws out both the letter and the envelope, when he feels it, tucked right in the edge of the paper folds. He knows what it is even before taking it out.

The photograph looks still more worn than before, Papyrus can only imagine what Marcus was doing with it in those final moments, but the image of June smiles as bright as ever.

A momentary snapshot of happiness long gone.

Papyrus knows now, that there are way more reasons to keep going than there ever will be to choose to stop.

He just wishes Marcus had known that too.

* * *

He takes the stairs two steps at a time, eager to get home already. Today was a school day and tomorrow is a therapy day, but right now Papyrus just wants to get back to painting.

He started something big yesterday, has been sketching out ideas all week, and now he's ready to make it come to fruition. When it's done, he will give it to the PUUH, to hang in their hallway.

Right side up this time.

He throws open the door without much regard, it bangs against the wall, just as is his intention. To make his housemate aware of his presence.

Doggo turns around on the sofa, canines bared in an unrestrained smile. "Back so early?"

"Schools out." Papyrus jokes, throwing off his jacket and hanging it neatly among the others. The apartment is small, but cozy. Room enough for the two of them.

Doggo didn't want to be alone and Papyrus couldn't be alone and somewhere along the way it just made sense.

He walks into his room and just takes a moment. The snowglobe is on his desk and the photo of June is on his wall and Papyrus just...

It hurts sometimes. It will never stop hurting completely. He has found peace with that now.

And that's the only thing that matters.

* * *

-The (Deep) End-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say except: THANK YOU. Thank you to all the wonderful people who stuck with me and supported me through writing this story. Everybody who read, bookmarked, left kudos and especially those that left a comment.
> 
> If u like my content, consider following me on [Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I'm actually on a waiting list for the mental health ward myself at the moment. (I see it as cosmic punishment for writing this story) The situation has left me financially in a tight spot, so please consider [commissioning me](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/post/155257482132/writing-commissions-are-now-open).
> 
> Thank you and see ya guys around!


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